Director: Nicholas Stoller
Writer: Nicholas Stoller
Stars: Will Ferrell, Reese Witherspoon, Geraldine Viswanathan
Synopsis: When two weddings are double-booked at the same venue, the father of one bride and the sister of the other bride try to preserve the wedding weekend.
Just a few years ago, a comedy like You’re Cordially Invited would’ve made tons of money in a cinema, released at the same period as it is now. The combined star power of Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon in a slapstick comedy from the director of Forgetting Sarah Marshall is enough for audiences to seek out such a movie, even if it gets lambasted by critics because Ferrell and Witherspoon still have enough pull to draw audiences in. However, they have sadly been relegated to doing made-for-streaming movies, with Spirited and Your Place or Mine being the only recent projects for our respective stars. And since we now live in the year of our lord 2025, comedies are mostly relegated to streaming platforms. Because of this, and for reasons that have never properly been explained, many of them aren’t up to the quality standards they once were when studios released them in cinemas (for example, the unwatchable Back in Action on Netflix).
So, color me surprised when I found Stoller’s latest comedic affair to be relatively tolerable, with a few great moments of well-timed gags sprinkled through its formulaic narrative. For a while, You’re Cordially Invited gets lots of momentum from its opening scene, with our protagonist, Jim (Will Ferrell), reuniting with his daughter Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan), who announces her engagement to Oliver (Stony Blyden). The background music begins to distort because, for Jim, his world has crumbled down, leading to an accidental hand injury as he can no longer formulate a proper train of thought. This is Ferrell at his funniest in a very long time, and Stoller fully knows how to exploit his physical comedic talents perfectly.
The scene is a significant highlight and sets the tone for how absurd and chaotic the rest of the movie will be, especially in how it introduces us to its conceit with Jim finally accepting her daughter’s choice and deciding to book the wedding at the inn he married his late wife in. However, the innkeeper suddenly dies after their phone call and never had the time to reserve their spot on June 1st. Meanwhile, we cut to Los Angeles, where reality show director Margot (Reese Witherspoon) is visited by her sister, Neve (Meredith Hagner), who announces her engagement with her longtime boyfriend Dixon (Jimmy Tatro).
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And what would you know? Margot books the wedding at the same inn Jim did on June 1st because (and this is the coincidence of coincidences) she also has a personal connection to the place. Since the late innkeeper never properly reserved Jim’s wedding, the current owner (Jack McBrayer) confirms their reservation. The two separate families arrive on the same day and, predictably, mayhem ensues. At that point, You’re Cordially Invited begins to lose itself slightly in a series of gags that miss the mark far more than they should and features situations too telegraphed to make any emotional impact.
Once the conceit is well-established, and Stoller sets up a rivalry between the two families, mainly led by the animosity Margot has towards Jim (and vice-versa), the movie’s overall narrative becomes incredibly predictable. The rivalry between the two lead stars is relatively funny because it’s exacerbated by Margot’s family being wholly won over by Jim, as they believe he is a lovely, charming man with little to no flaws. Now we, the audience, know this is not true: he does have his fair share of flaws, such as being too overprotective towards his daughter and not letting her live the life she wants, especially in the wake of his wife’s passing. However, he has always been sincere towards everyone he’s met.
On the other hand, Margot believes Jim’s “sincerity” is, in fact, just a ruse, and he is, in reality, faking the close relationship he has with Jenni. Of course, one begs to ask who does this benefit if he genuinely was pretending to love his daughter? When Jim overhears a private conversation between Margot and her family, who makes unflattering remarks at Jim’s expense, he decides to sabotage Neve’s wedding and put a plan in motion to ensure his daughter gets the best night of her life. We then get a series of slapstick sequences that aren’t as funny as they should be since we can see everything coming a mile away, except for a pointless cameo that feels very on-brand for how unmemorable most streaming offerings serve as commodities and not cinema.
A wedding ceremony set at a dock? What could possibly go wrong? Jim specifically telling Margot that he baked the wedding cake for her daughter? Oh, it will absolutely not be a part of a major set piece where the rival family attempts to destroy it. No, what kind of movie do you think this is? And, of course, since this can’t only be a silly comedy, we need a bit of a burgeoning romance between the two leads that could’ve worked had Stoller built it up from the start but doesn’t feel earned when they actively do fall in love.
To the movie’s credit, though, Ferrell and Witherspoon are a hoot when paired together and have a more palpable sense of chemistry than Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher did in Your Place or Mine. Perhaps cinematographer John Gulesarian’s flat visual style makes their relationship feel somewhat artificial, but the two actors have enough ineffable charm to at least make their pairing enjoyable. Ferrell, in particular, continues to prove why he’s one of the funniest actors working today and one of the select few who has perfected the art of (sparse) yelling into a true comedic powerhouse. It still works, and still gets me. What can I say?
Witherspoon fares so much better than her previous turn in a direct-to-streaming romantic comedy, thanks in no small part to an active sense of comedic timing with Farrell (though their romantic side isn’t great). This results in a hilariously endearing conclusion that ultimately cements You’re Cordially Invited as a pleasant watch, even if its narrative hurdles stumble the movie way too much into frequently familiar territory.
When Stoller uses archival clips of Viswanathan as a child during its final scene as a way to represent the loving relationship Jim has with Jenni, which continues to develop as she grows older, Stoller desperately tries to pull our heartstrings and feel for the father-daughter bond that was always at the core of the movie. In that regard, he succeeds in giving life to You’re Cordially Invited, despite significant moments that dampen the enjoyment we have in watching Will Ferrell go head-to-head with Reese Witherspoon in the land of predictability. Yet, since they have an enjoyable sense of play together, it’s not hard to be won over by what the film proposes (pun intended), though not without some reservations.
