Olivia Wilde has changed her mind about what happens after The Invite ends

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Invite.

Have you seen The Invite yet? If you haven’t, chances are someone has already asked you that question.

Olivia Wilde’s comedy about a troubled marriage has become one of the year’s word-of-mouth hits, earning more than $60 million worldwide and rave reviews. Its ending has also left audiences divided over what happens next to the couple played by Wilde and Seth Rogen.

And as it turns out, even its two stars had different ideas about their characters’ future. On The Big Picture podcast this summer, Wilde said she had imagined the couple would separate, while Rogen believed otherwise.

“Seth has a completely different opinion … he thought, ‘No, these people stay together forever. Like, they are soul mates,’” Wilde said.

Wilde originally saw the separation as a chance for the characters to see each other, and themselves, more clearly.

“It doesn’t mean the end of love. It just means this relationship is over, and it’s a very painful separation because you still love this person,” she tells The National.

But Wilde can now see a possible future for the couple. The path forward, she believes, would be different for each of them.

Show caption: Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen play a married couple at a cross…

The Invite, which Wilde also directed, follows Angela (Wilde) and Joe (Rogen) during a dinner with their upstairs neighbours Pina (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton). The visit brings the couple’s unhappiness to the surface, and Pina, a therapist, asks why they remain together.

Both say they are staying for their daughter. Pina suggests she might be better off with two happy parents living apart than two unhappy ones living together. By the end of the evening, Angela and Joe agree that their relationship is over.

But the final scene complicates matters. In it, Joe, a former musician who now teaches music, begins playing the piano he has avoided for years. Angela joins him, and the pair play together before she rests her head on his shoulder. And while this may be all that Joe ever wanted, crucially it doesn't mean this is Angela's happy ending, too.

“What he feels he needs is to feel seen, and he feels that by Angela coming to him, he’s been forgiven, and he’s been given the space to open up again and rediscover himself as a musician, potentially. But Angela … it’s a much longer process for her,” Wilde says.

Angela, an artist, has put aside her love of photography while raising their daughter and focusing her creative energy on their home. The blouse she wears even matches the walls of their apartment – a detail Wilde has said was intended to show how closely her character’s identity had become tied to it.

“I think that for her, it’s about rebuilding an identity that she sacrificed slowly over many years, and it can’t snap back into focus for her,” she says.

Show caption: Olivia Wilde plays Angela, an artist who has put her photogr…

Wilde describes Pina’s advice as “the dare to make our own choices for ourselves, to stop resenting each other for our misery, and to take responsibility for our happiness”.

She believes that means embracing individuality within a relationship, even if the couple decide to stay together.

“For a woman to decide to leave takes a tremendous amount of courage and a lot of thought. And if she came to the point in the previous scene where she said, ‘I agree, this relationship is over,’ it’s going to take a lot for her to feel that this relationship is something she can feel safe within again, and that she can fully surrender to again.”

But everyone's interpretation is different, something in which Wilde has revelled. At screenings around the world, she has spoken to audiences about how they interpreted the couple’s final scene, and hearing people's reactions has changed her own view.

“I’ve become more optimistic about this couple in the film through these conversations with audience members who have been through similar experiences, and many of them feel so hopeful about what can happen,” she says.

“I feel that there is a potential for that couple to create a new relationship with each other, but it’s going to take a lot of work.”

The Invite is available on digital platforms globally