‘You’re Cordially Invited’: Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon Made a Great New Rom-Com

Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Neighbors, Bros) is one of Hollywood’s few reliable comedy directors, and though You’re Cordially Invited, which premieres Jan. 30 on Prime Video, won’t be remembered as his crowning clownish achievement, it’s a genial big-budget feature that, in another era, would have been a satisfying date movie rather than a direct-to-streaming release. Even so, courtesy of charming and goofy performances by Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon as strangers who find themselves at war over their loved ones’ weddings, it’s amusing enough to do just fine on a screen of any size.

Jim is a widower cut from a familiar Ferrell cloth, segueing with whiplash-inducing speed from sweet to psychotic, and there’s no one he adores more than his daughter Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan). Prepping his house for her arrival, complete with a newly baked cake and cookies, he’s stunned to hear that she’s engaged to her boyfriend Oliver (Stony Blyden)—exclaiming, filter-free, “Who the f--- is this motherf---er?!”—and he smiles through the announcement with a look of dazed misery that culminates with him slicing his hand bloodily open.

Still, if he’s not thrilled about the prospect of losing his little girl, he’s relieved to hear that she plans to move close by and, moreover, that she’s interested in getting hitched on Palmetto Island, a tiny and charming enclave where he married Jenni’s mom.

Calling the resort, Jim books June 1st for the nuptials. However, unbeknownst to him, the woman who took his reservation barely marked it in the register before dropping dead. Shortly thereafter, Los Angeles reality-TV producer Margot (Witherspoon)—who grew up visiting Palmetto Island, where her beloved grandmother lived—reserves the same date at the same place for the wedding of her little sister Neve (Bad Monkey’s Meredith Hagner).

Just as Jim is overly invested in his daughter’s life and future, so too is Margot intensely connected to Neve, since she’s on the outs with the rest of her gargantuan Georgia family, who don’t understand her West Coast life and career. When both Jim and Margot arrive on June 1st, they discover the mistake—which is now the responsibility of new manager Leslie (Jack McBrayer), who tells them he can only accommodate one ceremony—and they clash, with Margot coming out on top because she was able to put her credit card down in advance.

Nonetheless, once Margot hears that Jim has baked his daughter’s wedding cake and got married to his now-dead wife at the venue, she can’t kick him and Jenni to the curb and agrees to share the space. You’re Cordially Invited sets this all up with the zippiness Stoller brings to every project, and Ferrell and Witherspoon are perfectly comfortable in roles that play off their strengths: He’s alternately goofy, romantic, and insane, and she’s tough, uptight, and adorable.

Neither step too far out of their comfort zones, and that’s okay, considering that Stoller’s script gives them sturdy material with which to work, whether it’s Jim remarking passive-aggressively that it’s strange Oliver didn’t “go for the permish” before popping the question to his daughter, or Margot riling up her siblings for revenge by leading them in a childhood chant of “CHAOS MONKEY!”

You’re Cordially Invited isn’t that far removed from Bride Wars and it’s about as formulaic as it gets. For the most part, however, such conventionality doesn’t matter given that it has a knack for eliciting a chuckle right as its action begins to drag.

Initially confronted with the double-booking, Jim warns Margot that if he sees anyone other than Jenni on the dock the following day, “that bride’s going in the f---ing lake. Splish splash, b----, taking a bath,” at which point she’ll be “a local legend like the Loch Ness Monster.” Ferrell remains more than capable of turning a routine set-up loopy through a random verbal or physical outburst—be it belligerent or bonkers—and that volatility proves to be the film’s trump card, as when he and Jenni treat their rehearsal dinner guests to a duet of “Islands in the Stream,” their enthusiasm at odds with the fact that it’s a decidedly sexual tune for a father and daughter to sing.

Jim and Margot flip-flop between being friends and enemies throughout You’re Cordially Invited, due to misunderstandings, selfishness, and their own screwily over-possessive hang-ups about their respective brides-to-be, and Stoller’s sharp comedic instincts make them, if not uproarious, then at least pleasantly funny.

Ferrell and Witherspoon have solid ying-yang chemistry that doesn’t quite extend to the romantic sparks that are supposed to inevitably ignite between the two. Yet they’re a perfectly ridiculous pair, she mad and he madder, even though Witherspoon doesn’t get put through quite the ringer that her co-star does, and her bickering with her family—a traditional Southern clan full of relatives whose names she can’t remember and whom she thinks hate her—produces scant inspired moments.

You’re Cordially Invited surrounds its headliners with a collection of witty people, including Drive-Away Dolls’ Geraldine Viswanathan, Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Keyla Monterroso Mejia, American Vandal’s Jimmy Tatro, and Leanne Morgan as Margot’s bored sister Gwyneth, whose exclamations about Jim’s hotness lend the material a weirdo jolt.

Once upon a time, films like this were the Hollywood norm, and while Stoller’s latest plays it too safe to leave a lasting mark, it knows what it’s doing and does it reasonably well, right up to the scene in which Ferrell wrestles an alligator in Margot’s hotel suite because, well, of course he does. Saying that there’s comfort in this tried-and-true template probably sounds like damning with faint praise, but it’s also an acknowledgement that sometimes clichés exist for a good reason.

Jim and Margot take turns sabotaging Jenni and Neve’s big day until everything blows up and they have to come to terms with the damage their craziness has wrought, and You’re Cordially Invited infuses it with requisite energy and invention, the latter thanks in large part to Ferrell’s gift for unexpected hostility. There are dead spots to be sure, and a couple of sequences and subplots that could have been altogether cut. Regardless, no matter where it’s seen, it’s an invitation that few will regret responding to in the affirmative.