Olivia Wilde’s return

Olivia Wilde’s third feature film, The Invite, opens next week. She has started doing press rounds in New York, including a screening event last night, and earlier yesterday she was out in a cool suit ensemble—she is the exact right height and degree of lankiness for a wide-leg slouchy suit to look cool and chic—with a tiny New Yorker bag.

I would like to us all observe the woman in the background, also judging Olivia’s fit. She is us, we are she.

At last night’s screening, Olivia went with a tiered tulle skirt and a jacket. I would like this better without the froofy sleeves, but again, she’s pulling it off on attitude.

Also at the screening were Sofia Coppola, Esther Perel, and Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, who wrote the screenplay. I’ll have a full review of The Invite next week, but when it played opening night at the Chicago Critics Film Festival, it killed. I missed some dialogue because people were laughing so long and loud at some of the jokes. After the messiness of Don’t Worry Darling, on and off the screen, it’s great to see Olivia bouncing back with a solid film that audiences are enjoying.

I’m very interested, though, to see how general audiences react to the film, especially as A24 positioned it as a summer release. Summer so far has been dominated by horror movies and sci-fi, and while in the past summer sleeper hits were definitely a thing, the box office has been so wild since the pandemic that none of the old rules apply. I am no longer confident that grownups will show up for an adult-oriented character-driven film in the middle of summer. The Invite is good, I just wonder how many people will give it a chance. We shall see.

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What else happened today…

Oh boy do I have a LOT to say about Belle Burden’s divorce memoir, Strangers. In it, she recounts the 2020 meltdown of her marriage, but I got really hung up on the money. Belle Burden is old money, you see, the granddaughter of Babe Paley and Stanley Mortimer, she’s connected to the Vanderbilts, her family has stacks on stacks on stacks. In her memoir, Burden is both shocked by her husband’s infidelity, claiming there were no red flags, yet the man kept a separate apartment where he stayed many nights—so he was cheating all along—and days before their wedding, he convinced her to alter her pre-nup to benefit HIM.

There were, in fact, HUGE red flags, she just ignored them. Beyond the pre-nup thing, Burden claimed that after draining multiple trusts to purchase real estate—which went into joint property because clearly her husband found the path to turn HER money into HIS money—that the divorce left her in financial hardship. It is a riches to rags tale. Except maybe not, because Jessica Winter did a deep dive on the divorce documents and found Burden had plenty of assets protected from the pre-nup. Like, millions and millions of assets.

Why fudge the numbers? Maybe Burden and/or her editor felt that if she admitted she was still a millionaire after her divorce her story wouldn’t be as sympathetic (her husband completely rejected their children, that alone is deeply sympathetic and not the kind of thing money will solve), maybe she just didn’t want to reveal how generational wealth is hoarded.

Either way, the money part of Strangers is the most fascinating element to me. But it’s still being talked about as mainly a divorce drama, and it’s being adapted into a movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow. A blonde New York socialite whose marriage detonates because she kept kicking red flags under the rug? Casting so good, Belle Burden herself can’t believe it. (Celebitchy)

There was an event for The Handmaid’s Tale which included Chase Infiniti, who stars in the spin-off, The Testaments. She somehow pulls off structured but puffy velvet and a mini skirt. Chase Infiniti can truly wear anything. (Go Fug Yourself)

Sean Penn is going to direct a movie about the January 6^th insurrection starring Bradley Cooper as a Capitol police officer. I have little interest in that project, but at the same time, I do think it’s important to document that day, as the events have been spun so far out into conspiracy. We need a clear, comprehensive record of everything that happened, the lead up and the moment of and the aftermath. Like I kind of wish Sean Penn was throwing his formidable access and resources behind a documentary, you know? I don’t need Patriots Day: January 6. I would, however, like a journalistic endeavor to document everything. (Pajiba)

Texas Monthly true crime alert! Katy Vine explores the murder of brewing magnate Otto Koehler and “the three Emmas”, the three women, all named Emma, involved with Otto at the time of his death. In San Antonio, Hotel Emma is named after Otto’s wife, Emma, but he also had two mistresses, also named Emma. Ready to be confused? Read the story behind “the three Emmas” and the death of one of San Antonio’s most colorful citizens. (Texas Monthly)