You’re Cordially Invited is a comedy with a promising concept, a talented cast, and a director who’s had plenty of success in the past with this type of film. But despite some good ideas, the film wanes quickly—mostly because the gags have a poor batting average, and the characters’ actions keep moving further away from recognizable human behavior.
Will Ferrell’s daughter (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Reese Witherspoon’s sister (Meredith Hagner) are set to marry their men of choice. Through a series of stupid misunderstandings, the two are booked at the same venue to which they hold a sentimental attachment, a Southern island estate and must share the venue. The estate’s not a plantation, although the film left that on the table as a source of comedy.
Some movies might have set it up as a war between the wedding parties, or the brides (as in the similar Anne Hathaway/Kate Hudson comedy Bride Wars.) Instead, You’re Cordially Invited acknowledges that both protagonists have issues with their own families—they fear being alone, and are too attached to their marrying relative.
Ferrell’s the typical Ferrell character, this time a widower who can’t let go of his only child, while Witherspoon doesn’t get along with her parents or other siblings, in part because she went off to L.A. to be a reality TV producer, while they remained behind as judgmental rich people in the Atlanta suburbs, including one sister who’s made up to look exactly like Marjorie Taylor Greene. The cutaways to Witherspoon’s reality shows are for the most part funnier than most of the main plot.
More than 20 years ago, in Sweet Home Alabama, Witherspoon also played a coastal elite heading South, who, in that case, found happiness through the Hallmark movie-style act of moving back to her Southern hometown. This time, Witherspoon’s character resents her Southern roots.
All of this is very promising, but the premise runs out of gas quickly. There are too many characters and subplots, most of which amount to nothing. Both actresses playing the brides have been outstanding in a few different projects—Viswanathan in Drive-Away Dolls and Blockers, Hagner in Vacation Friends, and the Apple show Bad Monkey—but neither is given much to do, while their grooms are practically non-entities.
As for Ferrell and Witherspoon, they have zero chemistry, whether they’re feuding or supposedly flirting. It’s hard to remember the last time Ferrell starred in a decent comedy feature film; he’s been more impressive of late in documentaries, whether it’s Will & Harper, or his recent turn in the Peacock SNL doc, in which he tells the story of the “More Cowbell” sketch. Anyone But You, the Much Ado About Nothing riff with Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney from a couple of years back, was a much better version of “chaotic rom-com centered around a wedding, where the central couple may or may not hate each other.”
The writer and director, Nicolas Stoller, has been part of some decent comedies over the years; he directed Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Neighbors, and the underrated gay rom-com Bros, while also co-writing 2011’s great Muppets movie. But You’re Cordially Invited is a failure.