Review: 'You're Cordially Invited' to skip Will Ferrell, Reese Witherspoon's wedding party

USA Today

30-01-2025

There are certain things about 'You're Cordially Invited' that seem like they could be fun, if you squint really hard. Reese Witherspoon banging her chest like King Kong while shouting expletives and warning she's going 'chaos monkey,' for example. Or Will Ferrell wrestling the fakest alligator you've ever seen.
It's best to just be wide-eyed about this unfortunate rom-com situation: There's not really much fun at all to be had. Written and directed by Nicholas Stoller – who's far from the wry highs of 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' and 'Neighbors' here – 'You're Cordially Invited' (★½ out of four; rated R; streaming now on Prime Video) is like the worst wedding you've ever gone to. It's a bizarrely off-kilter affair that's forcibly heartfelt and sentimental in one scene and overly mean-spirited in the next, and not even a few choice moments and some enjoyable surrounding weirdos can help two A-listers in way over their heads.
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Jim (Ferrell) is the ultimate girl dad, a master of baking and cleaning who raised his daughter Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan) solo after his wife died. She comes for a visit with boyfriend Oliver (Stony Blyden) with a surprise engagement announcement. And while thrown for a loop, Jim pretty much lives for Jenni, so he makes a date for them to get married at the same island inn wedding venue he did.
Margot (Witherspoon) is a hotshot reality TV producer who's estranged from her eccentric Southern family except for little sister Neve (Meredith Hagner). Margot pretty much lives for Neve – even ignoring a business meeting with Peyton Manning when she gets the news that Neve is engaged to her Chippendale boyfriend Dixon (Jimmy Tatro) and also pregnant. Margot makes a date for them to get married on the same island where she hung with her grandma as a child that, what do you know, happens to have an in-demand wedding venue.
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Naturally, both parties accidentally get double-booked for the same day, to the dismay of embattled inn manager Leslie (Jack McBrayer being very Jack McBrayer). Jim feels increasingly out of touch with Jenni and her Gen Z friends, Margot is the black sheep of sorts in her clan, and their individual problems exacerbate the stressful situation. After initially butting heads, they come to an agreement to share the venue. But bad weather, harsh words, simple misunderstandings and an open bar lead to a 'War of the Roses'-style throwdown between Jenni and Jim to deep-six the other's nuptials.
If it was all dark satire or all lighthearted rom-com, 'Invited' would have a better reception. The messy melding of the two doesn't work, and neither does the chemistry between its leads. Ferrell and Witherspoon don't jibe as friends or foes, which makes strange narrative decisions even more head-scratching later in the movie. The supporting cast around them are more successful in actually eliciting laughs: Tatro is the film's exotic-dancing voice of reason, Leanne Morgan plays Margot's scene-stealing, raunchy older sister, and Celia Weston is a hoot as their tough-love mom.
A few moments hint at Ferrell's socially peculiar greatest hits from 'Anchorman,' "Wedding Crashers" and 'Old School," including an awkwardly incestuous daddy-daughter rendition of 'Islands in the Stream' (a running musical theme of the film). More often, however, Jim tends toward the unlikable – with Jenni a smidge more tolerable – which is not a type that fits the endearingly goofy Ferrell at all.
'You're Cordially Invited' tries to have its wedding cake and drunkenly eat it, too, juggling screwball antics and cringe comedy. Like an NFL legend trying to warble a Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton classic, it's just cringe.