Nicholas Stoller, best known for Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Neighbors, fails to capitalize on the chemistry between his two stars in this wasted opportunity of a comedy.
Plot: When two weddings are accidentally booked on the same day at the same venue, each bridal party is challenged with preserving their family’s special moment. In a hilarious battle of determination, the father of the bride and sister of the other bride chaotically go head-to-head as they stop at nothing to uphold an unforgettable celebration for their loved ones.
Review: Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon clashing over competing weddings at the same venue on the same day sounds fun. Even the initial trailer for You’re Cordially Invited gave me some hope that the Nicholas Stoller-directed comedy would give us a one-two punch of actors to root for as they try to undermine one another. With Stoller responsible for some of the funniest romantic comedies of the last decades, including directing Forgetting Sarah Marshall and writing The Muppets, I remained hopeful that this movie would turn out to be better than the lukewarm reception to the trailer. While Ferrell and Witherspoon exhibit surprisingly strong on-screen chemistry, the movie wastes much of its humor early on. It leads to a film that quickly loses steam despite a capable cast of actors ready to have fun with the material. You’re Cordially Invited wastes what could have been a great concept by mashing together two half-hearted plotlines that never really generate much humor.
As the trailers showed, You’re Cordially Invited follows Jim (Will Ferrell), father to Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan). A widower afraid to lose his daughter, Jim reserves the Georgia vacation spot on Palmetto Island, where he and Jenni’s mother got married to Jenni and her fiance Oliver (Stony Blyden). Unbeknownst to them, reality television producer Margot (Reese Witherspoon) booked the same spot for her sister Neve (Meredith Hagner) and her exotic dancer fiance Dixon (Jimmy Tatro). The small cottage on Palmetto Island can only accommodate one party per weekend, so when both clans descend, they must figure out a way to coexist. Jim, who clings closely to his only daughter, initially seems cordial with Margot’s intense business-minded approach. Margot is close to her sister but feels like a black sheep compared to her siblings, including Gwyneth (Leeanne Morgan) and Colton (Rory Scovel), and distant from her mother, Flora (Celia Weston). With their own baggage to sort out, Jim and Margot press each other’s buttons as they begin to sabotage each other’s celebrations, leading to disaster for everyone.
At first, You’re Cordially Invited had me chuckling as tiny problems cascade into a disaster for each party. From weather to mistaken identity to overheard insults and an awkward performance of the Dolly Parton-Kenny Rogers duet “Islands in the Stream,” everything that could go wrong does. But, forty-five minutes into the film, most of the jokes shown in the trailer have happened on screen without much additional humor. Wasting some of the best jokes early makes the film feel like it treads water for the rest of the running time, much of which is focused on Jim and Margot feeling sorry for themselves as they are content with the prospect of being without the most important family members. Even cameos from Wyatt Russell, Bobby Moynihan, Nick Jonas, and Peyton Manning cannot help raise the bar on what transforms from what should have been a Neighbors-esque battle between two talented actors into a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. That’s right; You’re Cordially Invited squanders the chemistry between the two leads by burying the true core of the film into the closing act.
Each of the two wedding party narratives could have been the focus of a separate film had enough planning and focus been put into telling their respective stories. Geraldine Viswanathan and Stony Blyden play caricatures of Generation Z couples debating their romantic future. This is an easy forum to mock the divide between Generation X and Z divide. Instead, we get a couple of brief moments with Keyla Monterosso Mejia getting to have fun as Jenni’s maid of honor, Heather, and not much else. On the flip side, Meredith Hagner and Jimmy Tatro are likable as newlyweds, but comedian Leanne Morgan and Rory Scovel are wasted as fun Southern cliches. Bringing these disparate groups together could have also been a boon for Fortune Feimster and Jack McBrayer as the proprietors of the Palmetto Inn, who also do not get to do much in the overall film outside of show-up at key moments to mug for the camera. If not for Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon, this movie would have been a complete misfire, but even they cannot carry the entire film.
Nicholas Stoller, who wrote and directed the film, knows about pitting stars against each other after helming Neighbors and its sequel. Stoller also has had a great partnership with Jason Segel on Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Five Year Engagement, and The Muppets while crafting the underappreciated Billy Eichner romcom Bros in 2022. Stoller squanders Will Ferrell’s comedic range by not allowing him to go all out, either comedically or dramatically, here. Equally, Reese Witherspoon is stuck playing her character as solidly comedic without pushing into the story’s dramatic elements in any meaningful way. When we are supposed to root for Ferrell’s Jim and Witherspoon’s Margot to get together, it is too late. The movie has multiple “Islands in the Stream” performances, which should tell you how much time was spent developing the story. I won’t lie, and I did laugh several times during You’re Cordially Invited, but not nearly as often as I should have.
You’re Cordially Invited is another movie that has been saved from box office disaster by premiering straight to streaming and will likely be a moderate success for Prime Video, thanks to Valentine’s Day in a couple of weeks. The most surprising thing about this movie is how much I enjoyed seeing Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon share the screen, and I am very disappointed that it was not focused on them more. I never would have expected to like the pairing of these two as romantic partners, but now I am annoyed that it was not in a better film than You’re Cordially Invited. There are laughs to be ha,d but far fewer than there should be in a movie boasting this kind of talent.
