Critic Reviews

The Invitation is supremely well-crafted.

Kusama ratchets the story’s tension masterfully, building to a final shot that’s as chilling as it is perfect.

A charged, unnerving turn of the screw, The Invitation is consumed by the fear of forgetting.

Kusama’s handling of point of view is diabolically shrewd. She maximizes the terror potential of the vapidly ostentatious modernist mansion without fetishizing it. She intensifies the monstrosity of some of the characters by making them all too human. And as for guessing the ending — good luck.

The movie is a small marvel of contained spaces, exploited beautifully by Kusama and cinematographer Bobby Shore.

Psychological thrillers just don’t get any better than this.

Kusama expertly manipulates the tone throughout, ratcheting up tension and releasing it in quick bursts of nervous laughter, only to build it up again.

The buildup stretches longer than it should, but the payoff comes with a satisfying bang.

While some viewers may complain that the action is too heavily weighted toward the ending, I’d argue that this is a strong example of destination-not-the-journey film-making.

This well-acted, beautifully modulated exercise represents director Karyn Kusama’s strongest work in years, revealing an assurance of tone, craft and purpose that haven’t been in evidence since her Sundance prize-winning debut, “Girlfight.”