Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon decided it was their time to do the Adam Sandler thing and take a beautiful filming vacation. So they grabbed Nicholas Stoller and a bunch of up and comers from the next Hollywood generation to join them at a Georgia Lake House. Put a few cameras around, throw 2 fake weddings, and bada bing, bada boom, You’re Cordially Invited is there, ready to cozy up on a warm winter’s night with a little too much Prosecco. And like a Prosecco night, you’ll enjoy the movie ride, and feel a little bleh the next day, slightly confused and forgetful of what went down.
Margot (Reese Witherspoon) and Jim (Will Ferrell) went into this June 1st Palmetto Island weekend with such high expectations. Jim was ready to see his pride and joy Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan) get married to her boo Oliver (Stony Blyden). And despite her reservations about her family, Margot was stoked for her sister Neve (Meredith Hagner) to be marrying the sweet male exotic dancer Dixon (Jimmy Tatro). But due to an unfortunate amusing error by the lake house owner Leslie (Jack McBrayer), the weddings got double booked, scrambling the tightly wound Margot and Jim into a frenzy to figure out how to get the best wedding for their loved ones.
You’re Cordially Invited is a coin flip comedy: there’s a 50/50 chance of something funny happening. Nicholas Stoller is the best example of this. If the scene was driven by Stoller the writer, it’s a time warp to a rejected 1995 Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant vehicle, but transported to 2025. Geraldine Viswanathan, Jimmy Tatro, and the younger comedians suffer most here, as Stoller’s training as a mainstream comedy writer paints them all in broad, Gen Z strokes. But when the scene is “Will Ferrell and Geraldine Viswanathan sing a song” or “Reese Witherspoon gives a drunk speech” or “make up an insane modern game show”, Stoller the director enters, and the movie gets a little bigger and more exciting with possibilities. Maybe that’s where his heart really lies, in building setpieces for comedies, because those bigger moments give You’re Cordially Invited the jolt you need to get out of that Prosecco haze you’re probably in by the end of Act 1.
Cause let’s face it: if you’ve got Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon, just get out of their way, they’ll figure it out. I’ll never tire of Ferrell’s commitment to a bit, especially if it’s at least 20% deranged. He cooks a few times in this film, in the song mentioned above, and in a great runner at the end when he’s unmoored by what happened and is in full revenge mode. Reese has the more thankless “adult” part here, but as a result she’s always sniping and dressing down the unprepared Ferrell over and over again, and carries the movie when it needs to be at least a little emotional. As for the side characters, they mostly land tails when we bet heads on the coin flip. Meredith Hagner is a bright spot; she’s officially graduated from soap university into hopefully a romcom staple, just a fun hang giving the movie a sweet frazzled energy. Poor Jimmy Tatro is wasted here, kept around for one broad joke, failing to utilize what he’s actually good at comedically. But I feel worst for Geraldine Viswanathan. Cause when you watch this movie, the scenes that work best are the ones she’s really going for it, holding her own against the comedic Titan Ferrell or the Oscar winner Witherspoon.
So d’ya feel lucky, punk? If you’re 35 to 60, You’re Cordially Invited is probably landing heads, and you’re enjoying a movie wedding with Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon. If you’re a kid, you’re probably asking your parents “Is that Buddy the Elf and Elle Woods?” And if you’re me, you’re in the middle happy to see some funny stuff but slowly building up the creative juices to write a Geraldine Viswanathan vehicle worthy of the talent she rarely gets to show. Seriously, watch Blockers again and tell me she doesn’t have the juice.