Directed by Nicholas Stoller — Screenplay by Nicholas Stoller.
You’re Cordially Invited is the second Amazon Prime Video January release since 2023 to be explicitly a comedy about weddings. Back in 2023, it was the Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Lopez action rom-com Shotgun Wedding, which was relatively forgettable despite having a decent cast. This latest Prime Video wedding-centric January release is a star vehicle for Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon from Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Neighbors director Nicholas Stoller. Although, admittedly, it isn’t as good as Stoller’s best films, I had a relatively good time with this comedy of wedding hijinx one-upmanship.
Nicholas Stoller’s You’re Cordially Invited follows Jim (played by Will Ferrell), whose daughter, Jenni (played by Geraldine Viswanathan), is getting married, and Margot (played by Reese Witherspoon), a major television producer whose baby sister, Neve (played by Meredith Hagner), is also getting married. Both Jim and Jenni have booked the weddings to take place at the Palmetto Inn, which can only house one wedding at a time, on the very same day. When the wedding parties find out they’re double-booked, they have to get creative to fit them both in, but, at the same time, Jim and Jenni start to become competitive and spiteful. Soon, they both repeatedly try to sabotage the opposing wedding ceremony.
In the comedy category of straight-to-Prime Video releases, You’re Cordially Invited is somewhere around the level of a Jackpot! or a Ricky Stanicky, two relatively fun John Cena comedies that more or less went under the radar last year. Stoller’s film has moments that are reasonably funny (including the slightly stale but decently funny jabs at the ‘TikTok’ generation), but it isn’t a laugh-a-minute comedy, and, frankly, the overall character arcs of Jim and Jenni are quite predictable. That said, it is a relatively enjoyable comedy that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
I can understand why it has been relegated to a straight-to-streaming release (through momentary awkward cuts, it looked to me like certain swear words had been added in, which I’m assuming was a direct result of a switch to streaming), but I will say that both Ferrell and Witherspoon occasionally go all in with an excitement that is entertaining to watch. Witherspoon, for example, has this really zany chaos monkey scream in a scene wherein it is really fun to see someone like her let loose. Will Ferrell, a comedic actor that I always really enjoy, is his usual charmingly and disarmingly funny self here, and he is really fun to watch totally dialled in together with Geraldine Viswanathan in their odd relationship, and he totally understands the assignment with regards to the occasionally unhinged, vindictive one-upmanship.
Nicholas Stoller has several films in his oeuvre that are generational comedy classics. His latest film isn’t exactly that given its inconsistent comedy and predictable structure, but what You’re Cordially Invited definitely is, however, is a decent-enough streaming release to watch from the comfort of your own home with entertaining stars giving themselves over to a chuckle-worthy premise (there’s even a credits sequence featuring the stars singing, if you’re into that sort of thing). You probably won’t remember it in a year or so (at best, maybe you’ll look back on this middle-of-the-road comedy as ‘the most OK film of the year’), but it should do the job if you’re looking for an easy comedic fix while you’re resting on the couch on a weeknight.
6 out of 10
– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
I'm Jeffrey Rex 