Director: Nicholas Stoller Screenwriter: Nicholas Stoller Cast: Will Ferrell, Reese Witherspoon, Geraldine Viswanathan, Meredith Hagner, Jimmy Tatro Distributor: Amazon Prime Video Running Time: 109 min. MPAA: R

Watching You’re Cordially Invited is like being invited to a tedius 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 that do their best to play up the familiar scenario of a double-booked wedding. They don’t really 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 helps make this movie bearable is that two leads are likable enough to endure their company for this routine rom-com. Will Ferrell plays Jim, a widowed father who has just learned 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 comes when he discovers the wedding venue he booked is accidentally booked for another wedding. That other ceremony was schedule by the TV executive Margot (Reese Witherspoon), planning a wedding for her sister Neve (Meredith Hagner) and her fiance 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 cautiostly assert himself amid his daughter’s party-infused wedding, while Witherspoon struggles to maintain face amid a scrutinizing Southern family and a sister that is pregnant. They have their own unique quirks and their enduring enough to see how they’ll react as this common formula unfolds. Sadly, the resulting revenge schemes for the weddings reduces the characters too much that they’re nearly robbed of a chance to be more unique characters.

I must, however, give the two leads credit for putting their best foot forward. They’re place in scenarios where they’re either expected to fall into water, get drunk, have cake flung in their face, or wrestle in 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 of the endurance of You’re Cordially Invited more 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.

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