Ferrell and Witherspoon try their best, but a weak script and awkward chemistry leave this wedding comedy stranded at the altar.
By Dana Barbuto/Boston Movie News
Cross “Bride Wars” with “Father of the Bride,” and you get “You’re Cordially Invited”—a union that coasts on the familiar but still-appealing comic personas of Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon. But nothing in the movie was quite gut-busting enough to keep my mind from fixating on Witherspoon’s “super cute” bangs and her daily collagen intake. She is age-defying.
Witherspoon’s timeless allure aside, the movie falls into the well-trodden territory of wedding comedy, where chaos and clashing personalities inevitably derail the bridal bliss. This latest entry follows two wedding parties forced to share a venue after a scheduling mishap. As tensions rise, a stubborn father-of-the-bride (Ferrell) and an equally determined sister-of-the-other bride (Witherspoon) engage in an all-out battle to preserve their family’s Big Day. With emotions running high and space running low, the result is a collision of egos and inevitable wedding-day disasters—cue the sabotage.
Witherspoon plays Margot, a tightly wound reality TV producer planning her little sister’s (Meredith Hagner) festivities at their grandmother’s beloved Palmetto Island venue in Georgia. Unfortunately, Jim (Ferrell), an overly devoted dad in full wedding-panic mode, has booked the same spot for his daughter Jenni’s (Geraldine Viswanathan) nuptials. And since the venue can only accommodate one wedding per weekend… well, oops, Y’all.
On paper, this should work: a broad comedy featuring Ferrell as a frazzled father of the bride? Sure! A sharp rom-com with Witherspoon as a control-freak sister stage-managing a wedding? Why not! But instead of fully developing Jim and Margot’s characters, director Nicholas Stoller (“Neighbors,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Get Him to the Greek”) fills the gaps with wacky side plots, celeb cameos (Nick Jonas, Peyton Manning, Wyatt Russell), and a flurry of distractions in side plots about male strippers or Margot’s inability to remember the names of her nephews.
Character actress Celia Weston steals the (wedding) cake as the passive-aggressive Southern matriarch who can cut you down with a smile. Rounding out the guest list: the two grooms (Jimmy Tatro and Stony Blyden), Margot’s chaotic siblings (comics Rory Scovel and Leanne Morgan), and Jack McBrayer as the overwhelmed resort manager.
With a comedy pedigree like Stoller’s, you’d expect a script full of humor and heart. And maybe it could have been—if it weren’t for the awkward chemistry between Ferrell and Witherspoon. She’s in peak Type-A mode, but her character is a mess, and she struggles to sell raunchy lines like “she looks like a road whore” or drunkenly shouting about “going chaos monkey.” Ferrell, meanwhile, fares better opposite Viswanathan (terrific in last year’s lesbian caper “Drive-Away Dolls”). Their cringe-inducing performance of “Islands in the Stream” turns the Kenny Rogers-Dolly Parton duet into an accidentally weird daddy-daughter moment. Ferrell delivers another solid laugh when Jim casually recounts a three-way with a pair of widows.
At its core, the film tries to be about fear of change—Margot is afraid of losing her sister, and Jim is afraid of losing his daughter. That’s the emotional foundation, the something real in this movie. But if you can’t predict exactly where things are headed by the time the credits roll, well, then, as they say in the South, “the porch light is on, but no one is home.”
Once upon a Valentine’s season, Witherspoon had Tom Hardy and Chris Pine vying for her attention in “This Means War.” Now she’s battling with Buddy the Elf in a straight-to-streaming rom-com. The setup has potential but dissolves into scattered matrimonial mishaps. The cake is smashed, the sunset is missed, and there’s rain on the outdoor rehearsal dinner—plus a vein-to-vein blood transfusion, because why not? Things get screwed up, misunderstandings ensue, fighting breaks out, and then—like clockwork— everything gets patched up. Rinse and repeat.
To sum up “You’re Cordially Invited” in traditional wedding vernacular:
- Something old: Ferrell wrestling animals. He’s previously taken on a bear (“Semi-Pro”), a raccoon (“Elf”), and a shark (“Anchorman”). This time? An animatronic alligator.
- Something new: Nick Jonas as a hot pastor belting out Creed’s “With Arms Wide Open.”
- Something borrowed: The premise of “Bride Wars.”
- Something blue: My face from holding my breath, waiting for the Chippendales storyline to pay off.
‘You’re Cordially Invited’
Rating: R for language throughout and some sexual references.
Cast: Will Ferrell, Reese Witherspoon, Geraldine Viswanathan, Meredith Hagner, Jimmy Tatro, Stony Blyden, Leanne Morgan, Rory Scovel, Keyla Monterroso Mejia, Ramona Young, Jack McBrayer and Celia Weston
Director/Writer: Nicholas Stoller
Running time: 109 minutes
Where to watch: Prime Video on January 30
Grade: C+
Boston Movie News 