‘You’re Cordially Invited’ Movie Review: Wedding Comedy Works When It Stays Mean
Photo from Prime Video
From Jeremy Kibler
At the onset, Nicholas Stoller’s high-concept wedding comedy You’re Cordially Invited reminds of another January-released wedding comedy where two characters won’t budge on the same wedding venue (2009’s Bride Wars) — and it’s not a fond memory. Fortunately, this one is actually funny, not consistently but frequently, and at its best when allowing its big stars to be tart and acerbic. Will Ferrell is still doing his lovable doofus Will Ferrell thing, while Reese Witherspoon gets the rare chance to bring an unfiltered bite to her Southern charm. You’re Cordially Invited isn’t anything brilliant, but as a broad comedy with big stars, it’s very watchable.
Ferrell plays Jim, a widower and a clingy, overeager girl dad who receives the shocking news that his only daughter Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan) is getting married to her DJ boyfriend Oliver (Stony Blyden). Jim promptly books the adorable inn on Palmetto Island, Georgia, where he and wife tied the knot. Witherspoon plays Margot, a bossy L.A. reality TV producer whose baby sister Neve (Meredith Hagner) is engaged to exotic dancer Dixon (Jimmy Tatro). Margot wants the perfect wedding for her sister, so she books that same venue to which she holds sentimental memories with their beloved grandmother. Once these four families come together—particularly Margot and Neve’s large Southern family, led by a terrifically hyper-critical Celia Weston as the steel magnolia matriarch—Jim and Margot realize the weddings were double booked on the same weekend. What a snafu! The island is only so big, but they actually reach a compromise and share the space. And then they don’t, sabotaging the other’s wedding.
Beyond the setup of a double-booking (which gets a surprisingly dark spin involving the elderly owner), You’re Cordially Invited isn’t without plot misunderstandings to contrive friction and a few moments of slapstick that fall flat. For once, can a matrimonial comedy just leave the wedding cake alone and unhurt? Otherwise, writer-director Stoller makes sure there are enough killer comedic bits with solid setups and payoffs.
There’s an inappropriately creepy father-daughter duet to Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton’s “Islands in the Stream” that gets heads turning. One young wedding guest gets made up by a bride’s make-up artist who also specializes in Marvel effects make-up. A parody of one of Margot’s produced game shows called “Is It Dead?” (think “Is It Cake?” with animals) tees up a later gag involving an alligator. When Jim wants to elongate Jenni’s ceremony, he forces his daughter’s wacky bridesmaid/wedding planner (an exuberant Keyla Monterroso Mejia) to read her dramatic reading Dr. Seuss’ book “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”
With comedies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Five-Year Engagement, both Neighbors and Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, and Bros, writer-director Stoller definitely knows his way around stacking a supporting cast of hilarious scene-stealers. There’s already comedy insurance with Jack McBrayer and Fortune Feimster as inn employees, but there are other standouts. Leanne Morgan is understatedly funny as Margot’s older sister Gwynnie with petty rich people problems, and Rory Scovel has a sneaky delivery as Margot’s brother who only refers to his spouse as “the wife.”
Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell are both pros at not only their timing and delivery of zingers, but they find a little recognizable human motivation in Margot and Jim. She resents everyone in her family besides her sister since starting her fancy career in L.A., and he doesn’t want to let his daughter go; these are relatable feelings and at least bring a grounded level of internal logic to the escalating scenario being played for yuks. Witherspoon, in particular, feels at ease tapping back into the type-A perkiness and prickliness of Tracy Flick. She gets to be mean and unlikable, and that’s more exciting to watch than the normally sunny romantic-comedy lead we’ve seen before.
When Father of the Bride and Sister of the Other Bride are at each other’s throats, it’s raucously entertaining in a slight, harmless romp sort of way. But then, when the film has to wash its hands of every wedding disaster, it gets uncharacteristically gooey and feels unearned. A romantically jarring epilogue is all wrong; perhaps the film may’ve finished stronger if Margot and Jim just remained friends. Besides that forced conclusion—and a rather desperate musical number during the end credits—You’re Cordially Invited does nail the funny stuff.
Rating: 3/5
You’re Cordially Invited is currently streaming on Prime Video.
