Olivia Wilde | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

The new movie “I Want Your Sex” was another example where I was tricked into seeing a bad movie for this blog due to the high reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. I am at a loss as to how a movie this bad could be getting any good critical reviews. I also wondered if this film had anything to do with George Michael’s 1987 hit song – which it did not.

“A young man lands a job working for a controversial artist, only to become an unwilling participant in a dangerous game where he is her employee and at the same time being coerced into being her unwilling sexual experiment”. This movie is supposed to be some kind of dramatic comedy, but there is nothing funny here.

The owner of an art studio Erika Tracey(Olivia Wilde), creates insane sexual art, including one involving a drawing of a female private part, where both customers and employees stick gum on the drawing, the hardest-to-believe exhibit in this movie. Erika hires Elliot Bell (Cooper Hoffman) as one of her employees, and almost immediately this relationship degrades into coerced sexual experimentation that Erika forces on her financially challenged victim. There are meaningless side stories that include Elliot and his very angry girlfriend, Minerva (Charli XCX), and Elliot’s other female (and equally broke) friend, Apple (Chase Sui Wonders), with several inserted police interview scenes with Detective Zem (Johnny Knoxville) and Detective Zola (Margaret Cho) – primarily to make this 30-minute nightmare film into close to two hours.

This is the kind of film that only shows up in older arthouse theaters, is very low budget, and will be out of movie theaters in about two weeks.

My rating for this disaster is 0%, and a recommendation to shred the DVD as soon as it is released.

When it comes to screenwriting, the number one mantra has always been, “This is a movie, not a novel, show don’t tell”. The new movie “The Invite”, directed by Olivia Wilde, written by Cesc Gay, Will McCormack, Rashida Jones, and starring only four actors, Seth Rogen(Joe), Olivia Wilde(Angela), Penélope Cruz (Piña), and Edward Norton (Hawk) – the entire movie takes place in one small New York City apartment – violating all aspects of the show don’t tell rule. Movies like this one, which is a well-done dialogue-only movie, prove that the show don’t tell rule should never be applied to all types of films.

The story starts with a married couple, Joe and Angela, who have who face many extreme marital problems, beginning with nonstop arguing and disagreements that continue through the first 20% of this film. The arguments start with Angela inviting two guests over for dinner, who are neighbors in their apartment building. Angela insists that she told Joe days ago that this dinner would be happening, and Joe does not remember this conversation – starting the “you never listen to me” standard marriage argument. Almost all of Joe and Angela’s arguments are petty and ridiculous, which adds a strong element of comedy to this mostly comedic movie. By the time the guests arrive, Angela and Joe are still in extreme argument mode, which, for the rest of this story, which is almost 100% dialogue, mutates into arguments with their guests, finding out who they are, what they do for a living, and why Pina and Hawk really came over for dinner this evening.

This movie would never have worked if the dialogue and acting throughout this 1 hour and 47 minute unusual film were not so well done. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are too high at 97% for a film like this, with my rating a solid 85% and a recommendation.