- YOU’RE CORDIALLY INVITED
- Starring: Will Ferrell, Reese Witherspoon
- Directed by: Nicholas Stoller
- Rating: R
- Running Time: 1 hr 49 mins
- Amazon MGM Studios
Our Score: .5 out of 5
You are cordially invited to not watch “You’re Cordially Invited”. Released on Amazon Prime Video, this Will Farrell/Reese Witherspoon comedic vehicle is an outright disaster of Hindenburg proportions. Writer/director Nicholas Stoller (“Get Him to the Greek”, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) has helmed a comedy that is choppy, poorly acted with a dullish and predictable script, and has characters that are either annoying or are stereotypes from a myriad of other bad comedies. While there are inevitably a couple of laughs to be had, Farrell continues a streak of rather underwhelming comedies. Witherspoon’s effort appears forced at times while having about as much chemistry with Farrell as there is water in the Mojave Desert.
Jim (Farrell) is a widowed father who has raised his daughter, Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan, “Blockers”) since she was six years old. To describe him as overattentive, smothering, and too apologetic would be an understatement. Margot is a never-been-married, childless TV producer in Los Angeles who keeps her family in Atlanta at a distance, emotionally speaking, except for her bubbly younger sister, Neve (Meredith Hagner, “Joy Ride”).
Worlds collide when Jim and Margot, unbeknownst to one another, call a small resort on Palmetto Island, Georgia to schedule Jenni and Neve’s wedding day. The double-booking leads to an uncomfortable circumstance since the venue is too small for two weddings. At first, Jim and Margot are able to work everything out, but personality conflicts, jealousies, and pettiness lead to disaster for both weddings.
The family of Margot and Neve was apparently crafted to appear as a quirky bunch of characters that we are supposed to find amusing. Instead, they are boorish cardboard cutouts. The fake townspeople of Mel Brooks’s Rock Ridge had more personality. Jenni’s wedding party consists of some of the most annoying, idiotic, non-funny characters ever assembled for a comedy flick.
Witherspoon is just not funny, and Farrell is reduced to wrestling an animatronic alligator in a tuxedo to generate laughs, a gimmick that doesn’t work. Their pairing is awkward while the story is about as predictable as knowing the sun is going to come up tomorrow. Cameos by Peyton Manning and Nick Jonas are, for lack of a better word, weird and poorly utilized. Overall, decline this wedding invitation and watch something that is entertaining instead like “Dune 2” or paint drying.
“You’re Cordially Invited” receives a half star out of five.