On its surface or beneath that surface, “The Invite” is a date movie. So go with your significant other.

But speaking from experience, don’t be surprised if the whispered asides — in between elbows in the ribs — go something like this.

“This is why we never have people over.”

Olivia Wilde’s latest film in a sexy but acrid comedy about coupling and breaking up. And re-coupling, and “mixing it up.” And it’s about those “cool” neighbors you just know are having a better time of it than you.

“See? SEE?”

It’s based on a Spanish comedy titled “Sentimental” in its original iteration, “The People Upstairs” when it was remade in German, Czech or Korean. Wilde grabs a proven, can’t-miss premise, but hunts for something darker in this laugh-out-loud farce about other people’s sex lives and what our reaction to them says about us.

“Just shut up!”

Wilde — who also directed — and Seth Rogen are Angela and Joe, San Franciscans in a comfy, roomy flat they’ve just renovated.

We meet Angela shopping and prepping dinner, selecting meats and cheeses, consulting “The Joy of Cooking.” Joe is distractedly half-listening to a brass ensemble he’s teaching and rehearsing at a lesser Bay Area music conservatory, cursing half-under-his-breath as he takes another exhausting folding bike and bus ride home.

He comes in the door, hits the floor, and they go at it. He “forgot the wine?” They’re having “people over?” Wait, it’s “the people from upSTAIRS?”

Joe has issues with those two. She goes on about how “hip and cool” they are.” And “she’s so PRETTY.”

Joe is irritated by the “chatty” and “inquisitive” man of the couple, who makes “way too much eye contact” as he grills him in their brief encounters in the older building’s elevator.

But their “noisy” renovation created some obligation in their mind, some need to invite them to see what they’ve done with the place because they’ve said “We’ve GOT to have you over when it’s done.”

It’s not “done.” Completely, anyway.

Joe doesn’t remember the dinner date, and he plays every card in the deck to get out of it. And yet here “they” are, standing at the door, probably overhearing how heated Joe and Angela get over making an impression with food and forgotten wine.

The viewer gets her or his cringe-on as we all wait to see if Joe can get through the evening without complaining about the noisy “monster sex” their neighbors have many a night, always in the middle of the night, disturbing their piece and waking their 12 year-old daughter (not seen).

Piña, vamped by the Oscar winner Penélope Cruz at her most voluptuous, and her partner Hawk (Edward Norton) are truth speakers and truth seekers. They know who’s been fighting, and they’d like to “help.” The dears.

The fuming Joe and wild-eyed, manic and craving approval Angela do need help. But from these two?

Psychotherapist Piña marvels at how “mean” they are to each other. Hawk gushes in appreciation at how “speak your mind” “truthful” Joe can be. But Joe is quick to turn the questioning back around on these unconventional — even for San Francisco — and noisy love-birds.

Wilde keeps her camera tight and the takes long(ish), letting her stellar cast banter and riff and glower and grin, leer and lean into this evening-long squirm.

Cruz delights as her fizzy, blunt and unnervingly self-confident bombshell asks questions, tempts and teases them both.

“We would be crazy if we didn’t cry,” she reassures needy Angela. And Joe isn’t as dumpy looking as he thinks, she insists.

Norton’s “Hawk” half fends off Joe’s aggressive “NOBODY is named ‘Hawk'” insults and sets the tone for the self-censoring everybody falls into to try and get through this evening without incident. When Angela badgers Joe to open a valuable gifted bottle of wine they’ve had for years, as Joe admits “We’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to open it,” Hawk scores a direct hit with his reply.

“Are you sure this is it?”

Veteran “heh-heh-heh” comic Rogen kind of holds his own amidst a more formidable cast. Wilde goes at this tried-and-true material — on-camera and off — like her career depends on it, and Cruz and Norton just lean back and let Joe and Angela’s unease become the audience’s unease, picking their spots to put them and us on the spot with them.

Don’t wait to see this one at home. The feeling of being trapped with these four in this situation would be greatly lessened by hitting pause, ducking into the kitchen for a snack or comically arguing over what’s unfolding in front of you and making you fidget in your seat.

The familiar situation — neighbors you don’t know/neighbors you might like but have “issues” with –invites us in. But this cast and the characters they turn into punish each other and us at every turn — judging, goading, tempting and insulting with every breath through an evening that will have you staring at your watch in uneasy empathy.

Hey, we’ve all been there, right? Ok, maybe not “THERE.”

Rating: R, profanity, sexual situations

Cast: Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton.

Directed by Olivia Wilde, scripted by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, based on the Spanish film “Sentimental” by Cesc Gay. An Annapurna/A-24 release.

Running time:1:47