Are you with the bride or the groom? Hold on, scratch that. Are you with Reese Witherspoon or Will Ferrell?
You’re Cordially Invited, a new comedy directed by Nicholas Stoller, brings together two stars whose movie worlds are nearly as divided as wedding guests on separate sides of the aisle. Ferrell is most closely associated with broad comedies and Witherspoon the more romantic variety. And while both have expanded beyond their wheelhouses, they are each A-list refugees from movie genres — laugh-out-loud comedies, rom-coms — that have largely faded from theaters in recent years.
You’re Cordially Invited, which debuts Thursday on Prime Video, unites these two once-ubiquitous box-office forces in a streaming-only wedding comedy that cross-pollinates Father of the Bride with Wedding Crashers. The combination works well enough, though it’d be fairer to deem You’re Cordially Invited a funnier-than-average wedding movie than it would be a top-grade Ferrell comedy.
It’s been two decades since, in Wedding Crashers, Ferrell so gently called to his mother, “Hey, Mom! Can we get some meatloaf!” But a whole era has passed. You’re Cordially Invited is an attempt to rekindle some of the spirit of those early ‘00s comedies while growing it up a little, and roping in a new generation of funny people. Here, Ferrell plays the overly doting father to Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan). He’s a widower whose happiness rests to an unsound degree on his daughter. Jim steams her clothes and styles her hair. He’s not crashing the wedding this time; he’s baking the cake.