THE INVITE: It’s SENTIMENTAL Remade for International Audiences – Analysis by Jennifer Green
Olivia Wilde’s The Invite remakes a Spanish comedy for an international audience. The remake, which launched a bidding war at Sundance and made its European premiere to a capacity outdoor audience of thousands at Locarno in August, premieres Oct. 16 in Spain. That wouldn’t normally be news, but The Invite is a remake of a Spanish film, Sentimental (The People Upstairs), from Barcelona-based writer-director Cesc Gay, and it co-stars Madrid-born Penélope Cruz.
Wilde also co-stars in her version of the film as Angela, whose marriage to Joe (Seth Rogan) is on the rocks. When she invites their upstairs neighbors, Pina and Hawk (Cruz and Edward Norton), to dinner, Angela and Joe’s plans for their marriage and their expectations for the future are thrown into total chaos. The original film starred a locally well-known cast led by Javier Cámara and Argentinean actress Griselda Siciliani as the struggling couple (Julio and Ana) and Antonio San Juan and Belén Cuesta as the upstairs neighbors (Salva and Laura).
Sentimental and The Invite are both entertaining films. They address universal themes of love, relationships and sex, and at the same time they provide clues about their distinct cultures and humor. The difference is that audiences worldwide will watch The Invite and, moreover, will understand the culture and humor as if it were their own.
Universal Appeal
The Invite isn’t the first remake of this Spanish film—multiple adaptations have already been made in Europe and Asia. Together with Perfect Strangers, the Italian film that holds the record as the most adapted film of all time, with at least 20 international versions, Sentimental is fast becoming one of the biggest European intellectual properties.
“I think the fact that it was so simple, so funny, so witty, so intelligent and so easy to replicate has helped a lot with our remake deals,” says Iván Díaz, who negotiated rights for the film as head of international sales at Barcelona-based Filmax. While most companies option rights exclusively for their territory, or in specific cases for additional territories that share language or culture, American remake rights are the only ones not limited by territory, Díaz explains, because American films expect to be distributed worldwide.
The risks are higher—The Invite cost as much as $15m to make, while Sentimental cost less than $4m. But so is the payoff: After selling distribution rights for around $10m, the US remake has earned over $59m so far at the international box office ($26m domestically in North America and the rest abroad). Sentimental—which was nominated for five top Oscar-equivalent Goya Awards and won Best Supporting Actor for San Juan—earned less than $900,000 at the Spanish box office and just under $275,000 internationally (though Díaz notes its pandemic-timed release impacted ticket sales).
Comparing The Invite and Sentimental
Hollywood remakes reinterpret local films in a way that will speak to international audiences, by capitalizing on global stars, filming in English, using recognizable storytelling conventions and weeding out localized nuances in settings, dialogues and references. Here are some examples from The Invite:
Cast & Setting – seeking global familiarity. The Hollywood film casts stars who are familiar to international audiences. It mostly follows the original in structure and setting, and the apartments even look alike, but it moves the action from an unnamed Spanish city to a globally recognizable American one (San Francisco, shown in opening scenes of Rogan biking home from work). The music is also more globally recognizable in the remake (with songs by Sade and Joni Mitchell, for example).
Look & Tone – entertaining distractible audiences. Wilde and her DP, Adam Newport-Berra, add a greater sense of kinetic movement within the single set by using more dynamic camera positioning and faster edits. This makes the lack of action potentially more palatable for easily distracted audiences than the Spanish original, which is more traditionally focused on the characters and their dialogues.
That’s logical for a work adapted from the theater (Gay’s original script was written for the theater), but it also admittedly fits with traditional conceptions of American global entertainment versus European art cinema. What doesn’t quite fit those outlines are the endings—the Hollywood version’s final scene is more open-ended and left to interpretation than the Spanish original.
Characters & Humor – exaggerating for maximum effect. The US film takes character traits and exaggerates them so viewers can easily classify and understand their archetypes in broad strokes: Joe has low self-esteem, Angela has anxiety, Pina is sexually enlightened, Hawk is a man in control. Obvious clues are offered in wardrobes as well as behaviors, like Angela comedically sweating and popping a Xanax.
The script for The Invite strives for more laugh-out-loud moments. While the original is funny, the comedy feels more local—particularly Cámara’s Julio, whose sarcasm could land as more surly than amusing in a different cultural context. Rogan is more of a relatable everyman.
Themes & Culture – the American Dream belongs to everyone. In the US version, the characters have been Americanized to have different values, such as new class aspirations. Angela doesn’t just order a new carpet or put out a few snacks for dinner (like Ana), she buys a very expensive rug from a recognizable (to Hawk) artisan and an upscale assortment of deli meats and cheeses. Joe’s embarrassment that they live in an inherited apartment is a contrast to the original, where the detail that the apartment belonged to Julio’s grandparents is given with no fanfare, totally appropriate within the Spanish cultural context.
As Díaz matter-of-factly puts it, “Audiences worldwide are used to American storytelling.”
