I read a lot of recommendations about this film. So we went to see it.
First, I’d say it has a great cast. I love the “other couple”: Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz. They were amazing, and it was wonderful to see Penélope back on the big screen.
There was one moment in the film that I felt I was watching Esther Perel, and later it happened again. Then I understood what I saw; Penélope was studying the character based on the sexologist and psychotherapist Esther Perel.
I love Esther; I have followed her for years. Her wisdom regarding sex life and coupling was and is spot on and enchanting; some of her wording became known, such as: “It takes a village to raise a child” and to “re-marry in the same relationship even a few times.”
The first sentence, for example, gave me a lot of encouragement while doing it “alone” without my village, far away from my village… And yes, with my partner, who was working a lot, trying to build his business and being the co-provider.
We Speak in Archetypes
Penélope is playing the guest who is being invited; she has a Spanish accent. Perel has a French accent. But it doesn’t even sound like Spanish; it just sounds exotic. Perel is actually Belgian and speaks 6 languages, so her accent sounds more exotic than any one in particular.
Of course it’s part of the game to study a character when going to act in a film, but this is not a film about Perel. It’s about “a sexologist and psychotherapist”, and it feels to me that Perel was taken as a personage, personally. I would call it: Archetypically.
What do I mean by that?
As human beings, we have always spoken through symbols. In our society, we talk and have a need to use archetypes; we do it mainly without noticing it.
It looks like that:
“She is such a beach” = The Prostitute Archetype. “He is such a baby” or “he is a thief” when charging too much, right? “What does she think she is, a princess?” etc.
We talk symbolically. There are new archetypes like “he is such a geek” (computer). But most are eternal; “she is an angel, isn’t she?” or “she is such an artist.”
The host in the film is the Artist and Mother archetype. Many women can recognise those archetypes in themselves and in that way relate to this character in the film.
But why do I write it?
Why Do We Laugh?
As I was asking myself the question: Why do people that I appreciate say it’s a funny film, “a great laugh which they hadn’t had for years”?
I think it’s the release of the parts we are disconnected from in our psyche that get literal comic relief. I also laughed, I think twice. It’s a comedy film.
But for me, in my eyes, what has been done is taking “Hot” topics like Tantra, casting them on the “old” topic, sex, a topic which everyone can relate to, and making jokes out of it to get people’s guts.
The second subject being put in the blend, which they call the script, is Menopause.
Bringing Menopause Into the Conversation
As a Menopause Coach, I love it when the subject is mentioned. In a positive or in a negative manner, it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that it’s talked about. That is already good. No buts here.
Women all over the world should know this word; this term is not to be put under “the rug.” The rug is a metaphor used in the film a lot, about: new vs second-hand, authentic vs random, cheap vs expensive, knowing about or having it and the will to lie naked on it. It is discussed thoroughly; first physically, then metaphorically, implying sex or something else that the rug symbolises. Its symbolism stays throughout the film, like the magic carpet from “One Thousand and One Nights” that already lives in our unconscious mind from childhood, hanging in the air, in the background, always there without us noticing it.
The real story is that the menopause was actually brushed underneath the rug for decades. And here is my But:
The medicalisation of the term. Looking for “not feeling” it, that actually creates a new problem. Its true meaning is now being brushed under the rug.
What Is Menopause, Really?
A time of chaos in any woman’s life. Not to be fixed but to go through it.
When the chaos is too much to handle, which for most women it will be, I can promise you that it is because it’s hushed and put under the carpet. When it is done like that, it becomes more painful, more annoying. The more it is known and even admired, it creates a smoother transition, with no pain, mainly non-physical aches. That is proven by researching ancient cultures that see menopause as a rite of passage, where a woman finally comes into her power. She becomes the wise woman.
The glasses you put on when going through that process matter. The glasses are carrying the load of our society, culture, family, and inner thoughts about it.
In the film, Pína brings the perimenopause out there to be seen and acknowledged, which is so meaningful for the host as she gets emotional, in a very expressive explanation, using the squeezing of olives in her hands. Such a great scene. This was to express what men do not understand about what is really happening, explained in an “olive shell.”
It’s not the beginning of the conversation about menopause in our society, as otherwise it would not be on the big screen for the masses.
I invite you to please be informed of what it really is: a chaos that needs to happen. Like the goo in the cocoon, green, sticky, even disgusting. But still a must, to emerge on the other side, free as a butterfly.
It is a long process, as Pína says, about 10 years… and it better be. If it were from one day to the next, it would be unbearable. That is why it’s not like that, unless you have had your sex organs removed or have gone through chemotherapy.
So yes, go watch “The Invite”; mainly take a male companion, and let it open a new conversation around menopause.
The other subject touched on in the film, as I mentioned, is sex. I once heard a talk with Esther Perel where she was saying we go into marriage as women with a fairy tale in our unconscious mind: the archetype of Cinderella, the princess saved by her knight. The fact is that most of us don’t have the princess archetype in us, although some of us at least would wish to.
There is seldom a conversation about sex and how this partnership is going to be before the marriage takes place. Perel said that most gay couples do have that conversation, and it is something we in hetero relationships can learn from. We do it mainly only when the ship has been sailing for a while, hitting some big rocks, almost drowning, then the sex talk emerges.
Either being prepared like “the guest” in the film by going to consult or being the consulter, or unprepared, full of embarrassment; that embarrassment is what creates the humorous parts in the film. The awkwardness around those topics.
That reflects to me as one of our problems in society:
being awkward around sex and menopause. Both topics we all have a relation to, whether being women or living next to one (and yes, there is andropause, and Joe might be in it, but we will not go into it in this post).
What we have here are two things that are part of nature and are natural experiences: sex as an evolutionary must (first chakra) and as our basic right for pleasure (second chakra), and menopause, the closing of the fertility window, every woman went, goes, or will go through.
If this is awkward, our own nature, we are a very awkward species.
I’d like to make it an open invite to connect with me if you want to go deeper on the menopause conversation.
Please follow me on Substack @odacare and join my online or live menopause workshops.
With Love,
Oda