Watching You’re Cordially Invited is like being invited to a tedious wedding of some old friends. You love seeing them again and remember your good times, but the ceremony tests your patience for how willing you are to endure their latest social milestone. Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon are both fine actors who do their best to play up the familiar scenario of a double-booked wedding. They don’t turn this tired formula on its head, but they do put their best comedic foot forward for a movie where Ferrell wrestles an alligator and Witherspoon falls into the water.

What makes this movie bearable is that the two leads are likable enough to endure each other’s company throughout this routine rom-com. Will Ferrell plays Jim, a widowed father who has just learned that his daughter, Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan), is getting married to Oliver (Stony Blyden). Although initially shocked, Jim touts himself as a loving dad who gets over the initial shock, where even the inclusion of Jenni’s eccentric party friend Heather (Keyla Monterroso Mejia) planning the festivities can’t break him. Something more absurd will have to break him.

That frustration arises when he discovers the wedding venue he booked has been accidentally booked for another wedding. That other ceremony was scheduled by the TV executive Margot (Reese Witherspoon), planning a wedding for her sister Neve (Meredith Hagner) and her fiancé Dixon (Jimmy Tatro). While Margot is a busy woman, she does make time for her sister, going so far as to blow off a meeting with Peyton Manning while he’s in the room. So, the double-booked wedding becomes the true test of how these caring wedding planners can share their island destination for a ceremony, with awkward and physical hijinks contractually guaranteed.

From this aspect, I can only judge the film on how well the characters become enduring amid all the expected antics. Ferrell has a wholesome quality for how he tries to assert himself amid his daughter’s party-infused wedding cautiously. At the same time, Witherspoon struggles to maintain face amid a scrutinizing Southern family and a sister who is pregnant. They have their own unique quirks, and they’re enduring enough to see how they’ll react as this familiar formula unfolds. Sadly, the resulting revenge schemes for the weddings reduce the characters too much, so they’re nearly robbed of the chance to be more unique.

I must, however, give the two leads credit for not phoning in their roles. They’re placed in scenarios where they’re either expected to fall into water, get drunk, have cake flung in their face, or wrestle with an alligator. To their credit, Ferrrel and Witherspoon do seem to have their heart in these moments, coming across more like concerned family members than cartoon characters. But the script does them no favors, where it feels like they have to struggle against a plot so routine and rote that it threatens to reduce them to punchlines for slapstick. They do their best, but they can’t perform miracles.

I appreciated more the endurance of You’re Cordially Invited than anything else present in the film. There are some moments of charm, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pleased with the characters, but all of it feels at the behest of a script that does them no favors. Credit is due for Ferrel and Witherspoon, but, much like an awkward wedding ceremony, I felt like I was more present for the people than the ceremony itself. These two actors deserve better than a film so routine it can’t even find funny stuff to Jack McBrayer.