It’s been a couple of years now, but it’s still disconcerting to see the classic MGM logo in front of Amazon streaming movies. It’s flagrant stolen valor, a tech monopoly throwing billions of dollars at a once mighty media company to buy itself a cultural legacy. In its desperate bid to legitimize itself (while adding valuable IP to its coffers), Amazon still doesn’t understand what allowed the old studios to prosper — putting movies into theaters for paying audiences. Which is to say, there’s no reason that You’re Cordially Invited couldn’t have opened on a couple thousand screens, played for a few weeks, and gone on to have the traditional afterlife of an average mid-tier studio comedy. Except streaming has devalued both the theatrical experience and comedy in general, creating a situation where populist crowd-pleasers — Adam Sandler, Melissa McCarthy, Kevin Hart — pump out movies that few people seem to watch and fewer remember. It’s perhaps simply a sign of the times that stars like Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell must work with streamers to get anything made.
It is, of course, unclear how successful a film like You’re Cordially Invited would have been in a traditional release model. It’s a sometimes awkward throwback to the kind of large ensemble, improv-based comedies that writer-director Nicholas Stoller made his name on in the 2010s, when most mainstream comedy still orbited around Judd Apatow and his languidly-paced, absurdist sensibility. Still, it’s a pretty funny outlier, a human-scaled attempt to do a screwball farce that hits more than it misses. A brief prologue introduces the film’s major players: when Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Oliver (Stony Blyden) announce their engagement to her overbearing father Jim (Ferrell), he’s determined that they get married at the same venue that he and Jenni’s mother were wed at. He calls to reserve the date, but unbeknownst to him the elderly receptionist drops dead before she can confirm the reservation. Meanwhile, Neve (Meredith Hagner) and Dixon (Jimmy Tatro) reveal their engagement to Neve’s older sister Margot (Witherspoon), a high-strung reality TV producer who insists on planning her little sister’s special day. Naturally, she books the same venue on the same date as Jim’s daughter’s wedding. Fast-forward a year and the two families finally converge for their special weekends — two large groups suddenly occupying the same small, picturesque island that can only host one event at a time due to its diminutive size.
What follows is an escalating series of absurd situations and comic misunderstandings, complete with occasional bits of emotional honesty and heartfelt attempts at learning and growing (another Apatow factory staple). The mixture of slapstick and sincerity doesn’t always work, but a game cast does their best. Ferrell is indulging familiar schtick here, switching from wide-eyed earnestness to borderline violent intensity with ease, while Witherspoon mostly plays the material straight. As critic Jesse Hassenger has pointed out, the two stars have virtually no chemistry, which works fine when they are at each other’s throats, but becomes an issue when the film tries to segue into rom-com territory. Margot initially wins the battle over who gets to stay at the venue, but feels bad when she discovers that Jim is a widower and had picked the venue to honor his late wife. For his part, Jim softens when Margot confides that her and Neve used to stay on the island with their grandmother, who provided the love and kindness their own mother did not. The two hash out a plan to divvy up the various stages of their weddings; one will have their rehearsal dinner inside and the other outside, then swap for their receptions. Likewise, they’ll share the island’s only pier for their respective ceremonies, timing it so that each group gets to enjoy some of the sunset. But nerves abound; Jim is a basket case, having devoted his life to Jenni after the passing of his wife, and while their co-dependent relationship is mostly played for laughs, the film occasionally hints at something darker (the incestuous undertones of a father-daughter doing a duet of “Islands in the Stream” becomes a running gag). Meanwhile, L.A.-based Margot is totally disconnected from her family, all of whom live in the south and seem wary of her big city lifestyle.
Which is to say, everything in You’re Cordially Invited is set up for maximum conflict and tearful reconciliation. Admittedly, this makes it all the more jarring when Stoller inserts a big, broad gag into the proceedings (Jim wrestling an alligator and trying to sneak it into Margot’s room seems beamed in from an entirely different, much dumber movie). But there’s still a ton of great work from a myriad number of bit players located around the periphery of the main cast, very funny performers each given a little bit of space to deliver a one-liner or amusing reaction shot. It’s in this territory that the film really shines, and Stoller’s facility with actors and capturing small-scaled, one-off moments of comedic charm is allowed to fully blossom. And cinematographer John Guleserian does his best to support the ensemble by giving everything a professional sheen — say what you will, but Amazon productions tend to at least look more like real movies than the average Netflix original. At almost two hours, the whole thing certainly runs a little long, and the speedy resolution is simultaneously wholesale unbelievable and a forgone conclusion. Still, though it may only be nostalgia doing its work, You’re Cordially Invited leaves one with the impression that it might be nice to see one of these inoffensive gag-fests on a big screen again rather than on TV at home, likely mostly taken in these days while the viewer is otherwise engaged with domestic duties or doomscrolling their phone. C’est la vie.
DIRECTOR: Nicholas Stoller; CAST: Will Ferrell, Reese Witherspoon, Geraldine Viswanathan, Jimmy Tatro; DISTRIBUTOR: Amazon MGM Studios; STREAMING: January 30; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 49 min.
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