Wedding planners know all the best decisions in the world aren’t always enough.
Planning matters, of course, but life sometimes gets in the way. “You’re Cordially Invited” echoes that hard truth.
The creator of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” assembles a killer cast, from charming leads to scene-stealing sidekicks, and sets them against a can’t-miss premise. What if a wedding destination double-booked the big day?
And, for a spell, the Prime Video original doesn’t miss. There’s still plenty of story to be told, and writer/director Nicholas Stoller (“Bros“) shows his planning came up woefully short.
Will Ferrell stars as Jim, a widower trying to give his now-adult daughter Jenni (a grating Geraldine Viswanathan, “Drive-Away Dolls”) the wedding of her dreams. His plan backfires when the island retreat fails to mark his reservation down on the calendar (don’t ask…).
Another wedding party snags the same date.
That’s led by Reese Witherspoon’s Margot, a hard-charging TV producer who wants her kid sister to have her own dream wedding.
The parties quickly resolve the conflict. They’ll split the island’s resources and make the best of a sorry situation. Problem solved, but that wouldn’t yield wacky high jinks, would it?
Tensions flare. Jim’s overprotective ways get the better of him. The canvas expands to include Margot’s family, including a stern matriarch (Celia Weston) and a horny relative (a fitfully funny Leanne Morgan).
So far, so engaging. We don’t quite know where the plot will go, but we’ll happily hang around these characters until we find out.
Turns out even Stoller isn’t sure where to steer the story.
Jack McBrayer joins TODAY’s Jenna Bush Hager and guest co-host Kimberly Schlapman to talk about the fun he had making “You’re Cordially Invited” with Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon. https://t.co/zxmJN2x9me
— TODAY with Jenna & Friends (@JennaAndFriends) January 28, 2025
“You’re Cordially Invited” leans into cringe comedy one moment, then heart-tugging asides the next. The script is littered with profanity but lacks the giddy chaos of the best R-rated comedies.
Weston’s character is the embodiment of Southern hospitality at its worst.
At first. The script can’t make up its mind about her. The same is true for our main characters.
Jim is sweet and then vindictive, and the personality shifts don’t gel. Jenni is worse, dressing down Daddy for using the wrong term for a woman. Who knew “Lady” was so offensive?
That woke rant stops the film cold. Exhausting.
The film’s tone keeps on shifting, and the modest laughs soon dry up.
Comedies rarely draw attention to their scores, but “You’re Cordially Invited” makes the very most of its musical accompaniment. It’s beautiful, then bombastic, goosing the better comic scenes and papering over the worst.
Can’t blame composer Michael Andrews for the film’s flaws. We still could use less of strained comic bits like the Jim/Jenni “Islands in the Stream” duet.
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The third act features a romance that literally comes out of the blue, makes no sense and feels like a sop to the laziest rom-com tropes. And the film’s signature sight gag, Jim wrestling an alligator, is so aggressively dumb that it undercuts any comic potential.
The end credits find Ferrell and Witherspoon singing, flirting and dancing in ways that make us wish the clips made it into the actual film.
We’d love an invite to that comedy, not the one preceding it.
HiT or Miss: “You’re Cordially Invited” starts with promise but ends up squandering the talents of all involved.
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