Written and Directed by Nadia Conners | 97 min | ▲▲ | VOD

This is a talky, Tinsel Town satire of the sort where a group of entitled people gather, indulge in substances and discuss issues of age and paths not taken. It’s cut from the cloth of California Split or The Anniversary Party.

Rose (Elizabeth Reaser) and Sammy (Walton Goggins, the husband of the filmmaker) are a couple living in a pile in the Hollywood Hills. Rose is a former theatre star resentful of now being a mom and Sammy is an agent. They’re hosting a garden party, but we don’t spend much time in it. We’re mostly hanging inside with Rose, taking care of Helen (the legendary Lois Smith, one of the cast of East of Eden and Five Easy Pieces), an older lady who wandered in through the front door. She may have lived in the same house years ago — she’s a bit confused, but clearly the plot’s truth teller.

This while Sammy does some coke and wrestles with his own regrets. Rufus Sewell, Pedro Pascal, and Eva De Dominici play three different kinds of showbiz creatures who occasionally share the frame with one or another of our central couple.

The Uninvited is a stiff, stage-bound drama masquerading as a movie — it gives its talented cast a few dramatic moments, but for material rich with satiric possibilities it’s nearly bereft of laughs, instead preferring to club us to death with its themes while offering only a passing understanding of how people behave in real life.