REVIEW: ‘You’re Cordially Invited’ Tries Too Hard to Find the Humor

Planning a wedding is never easy, but it’s even harder when the wedding venue makes an error and double books the venue. You’re Cordially Invited brings this horror tale to life as it follows Jim (Will Ferrell), a single father planning the perfect day for his daughter (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Margot (Reese Witherspoon), a TV producer hell-bent on creating the perfect wedding for her sister, Neve (Meredith Hagner). When the pair arrive on the weekend of the wedding, they discover that the venue had made an error and booked both weddings for that weekend. With it being a small venue, Margot and Jim make accommodations so that both weddings can go off without a hitch, but things obviously don’t go as planned, and the pair find themselves at odds. These odds lead to a list of not so welcomed shenanigans that may or may not lead to unfortunate chaos.

Protagonists at odds and serving revenge on a comedic platter should not be stranger to director and screenwriter, Nicholas Stoller, with a resume that includes the 2014 comedy, Neighbors, and the 2008 comedy, Forgetting Sarah Marshal. However, You’re Cordially Invited is just that, a stranger. Stroller doesn’t ever nail down the identity of this film. The audience understands it’s suppose to be a comedy, but what kind? Is the film suppose to be a romantic comedy, a raunchy comedy, or just plain comedy? Too often throughout the little over ninety minute film, a laugh out loud moment is completely overturned due to a outlandish character’s action or an inappropriate piece of comedic dialogue. Raunchy comedy has it’s place, and when done well, will be a thing to remember. But again, it has its place, and it should not be during meaningful moments between characters, that take the definition of meaningful, crumble it up and turn the moment into a throw away moment.

Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell know a thing or two about comedies. However, this film does a disservice to that knowledge. The writing of the film focuses too much on Witherspoon and Ferrell’s very different comedic strengths. For Ferrell, it’s the over-the-top, raunchy comedy while Witherspoon thrives in a good romantic comedy. This isn’t to say that the pair can’t handle their own in other types of comedic genres. But audiences will never know. Instead of providing these veteran actors with material that allows for them to showcase their range of talent, the pair is shoehorned into these comedic categories, that don’t allow for chemistry between them, and stilt the story from growing.

You’re Cordially Invited isn’t something worth running to Prime Video for, nor is it something worth paying for either. Ferrell and Witherspoon are too talented for the material given, and the story feels like a divorce waiting to happen.

Grade: C-