Summary
A star-studded but sluggish wedding comedy, Nicholas Stoller’s film struggles to balance its chaos with genuine laughs or romance.
In addition to life’s inevitable certainties—death, taxes, and financial anxieties—you can probably add romantic comedies on streaming platforms. Nicholas Stoller’s YOU’RE CORDIALLY INVITED has promise on paper, especially given the comedic star power plastered across the poster. Yet for a “scripted comedy,” it seems to be missing two crucial elements of that phrase.
The premise is simple enough. Bride-to-be Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan) and her incredibly close father (Will Ferrell) plan a wedding on an island filled with nostalgic meaning for them both. However, due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, they wind up double-booked with another bride, Neve (Meredith Hagner)—much to the outrage of her wedding-planner sister (Reese Witherspoon). You know exactly where this is going.
This isn’t Stoller’s first run at the wedding genre (The Five-Year Engagement), and he’s often shown a knack for exploring the intricacies of relationships (Neighbours, Bros). Yet with YOU’RE CORDIALLY INVITED—which he also wrote—his approach seems to be more about throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks.
Some of it does, particularly in the kind of uncomfortable comedy that Ferrell excels at. A father-daughter duet of Islands in the Stream is the most squirm-inducing since Arrested Development forever altered Afternoon Delight in our minds. Various family members get their moments in the sun, but it’s not until the halfway mark—a full hour in—that the ‘chaos monkey’ of all-out wedding warfare begins.
Even then, the film just meanders, each apparent resolution leading to another ten minutes of wrap-up. It feels like the tracks were still being laid as they went. One of the film’s signature moments—featuring an alligator and an impromptu blood transfusion—seems to exist solely for a “see you later, alligator” gag.
If all this sounds like a swearier Hallmark movie, you’re not far off. Ferrell and Witherspoon bring plenty of life to their characters individually, but if you’ve already predicted their inevitable fate, you’ll also find a complete lack of chemistry on the path there. The romance, such as it is, feels entirely unearned—tacked on as an obligatory conclusion to the hijinks.
It’s a shame because there’s the bare bones of a decent premise buried in here. The supporting cast gives it their all, and it might have been more interesting to watch the chaos unfold from the perspective of the otherwise underutilised Leanne Morgan and Martha B. Knighton. Yet, as the obligatory cast singalong rolls over the credits, you’ll realise how many big names just didn’t get a chance to shine. Think twice before RSVPing to this invite.
2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Nicholas Stoller | WRITERS: Nicholas Stoller | CAST: Will Ferrell, Reese Witherspoon, Nicholas Stoller, Jessica Elbaum, Conor Welch, Lauren Neustadter | DISTRIBUTOR: Amazon Prime Video | RUNNING TIME: 109 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 30 January 2025 (Global)
