In addition to You’re Cordially Invited being generally cringeworthy, it’s also the kind of “comedy” to rival one of Lindsay Lohan’s recent “offerings” for Netflix. In point of fact, these types of so-called comedies/rom-coms are the norm—not the exception—the more that time dissipates (further and further from the twentieth century). Though, to be somewhat fair to You’re Cordially Invited, it’s not nearly as base or embarrassing as Irish Wish (granted, few things can be), but more than slightly on par with Our Little Secret (and perhaps just a notch above Falling for Christmas). And while Amazon might have the bigger budget for movies, it’s not coming across much better than what Netflix is turning out for their “holiday fare” cycle. In fact, if You’re Cordially Invited had been set up to take place during the Christmas season, it might actually be more forgivable for how cornball it is (including a father-daughter dynamic that is skin-crawlingly difficult to watch). And maybe the reason one is so hard on the Nicholas Stoller-written-and-directed film is because, over the years, viewers were conditioned to expect slightly better of both Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell (well, less so of Ferrell).
The same can’t be said of Lindsay Lohan’s “work,” on a nonstop decline ever since her apex in 2004 with Mean Girls. Which is why seeing “the media” label her multi-movie deal with Netflix as a “comeback” wasn’t all that shocking. Because it’s easy to “come back” when your filmography isn’t all that fly to begin with. But for Ferrell and Witherspoon, somewhat higher standards were (once) to be had—and adhered to. Even if Witherspoon already started to veer away from “quality” by pivoting back toward the kind of rom-com that might have been passable in the 00s. This achieved not with an Amazon movie, but a Netflix one—specifically 2023’s Your Place or Mine (co-starring the more age-appropriate-as-a-love-interest Ashton Kutcher). It’s difficult to say, in fact, which movie between the latter and You’re Cordially Invited is more affronting to the audience. Especially if it’s an audience that was once accustomed to higher-caliber rom-coms à la the Julia Roberts Golden Age (starting from Pretty Woman and ending with Runaway Bride).
As for the generation that came of age with Lohan, they were already being conditioned to expect less with rom-coms such as A Cinderella Story (starring Lohan’s then “rival,” Hilary Duff), She’s the Man, 27 Dresses, 50 First Dates and Monster-in-Law. Movies that might have looked “bad” compared to true classics (e.g., It Happened One Night) then, but seem positively “first class” now compared to the schlock being turned out on the rom-com front. Indeed, it’s enough to make the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Katharine Hepburn turn in their graves. Particularly with the slew of limitations that have been put on how “love”/people can be presented. That is to say, in a way that must be as “unoffending” to every viewer as possible. Hence, the overall banality of rom-coms in the spirit of what Lohan has decided to churn out for Netflix. And now, what once A-list rom-com’ers like Witherspoon have decided to for both Netflix and Amazon.
Which isn’t to say that, at times, these types of movies don’t have their “high-budget” moments—mainly with music licensing. In fact, it’s widely known that Amazon spends a large chunk of its film budget on just that. This being what the movie immediately flexes as the opening credits to You’re Cordially Invited roll to the tune of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” (that definitely wasn’t cheap). In this musical regard, it seems like it wants to be more in keeping with the Lohan brand that she established with The Parent Trap, which featured a “wedding/love”-oriented anthem like “Isn’t She Lovely” in the form of Natalie Cole’s “This Will Be.” A tune that becomes a running sonic motif throughout Lohan’s debut movie (the one that commenced her profitable partnership with Disney before she made this mistake of trying to become a “serious actress” with post-Herbie: Fully Loaded projects like I Know Who Killed Me).
Unfortunately for the audience, You’re Cordially Invited is far more in line with Falling for Christmas on the quality (and even believability) front, even though it wants to be aligned with the era of Lohan’s career when she was desirable to a rom-com titan of a writer-director like Nancy Meyers. And no amount of quintessential 70s and early 80s hits (“Islands in the Stream” included) can change its ultimately low caliber. Again, on the same playing field as what Lohan is “making” for Netflix years after throwing in the towel on trying to recapture the glory of Mean Girls (though that hasn’t stopped her from attempting to tap into her 00s heyday with a sequel to Freaky Friday—the closest she might get to releasing something semi-decent after a string of duds or otherwise “blah” movies).
But with so much “sheen” in its corner, maybe that’s part of what makes You’re Cordially Invited seem, on the very surface of things, more “high-gloss” than a movie like Our Little Secret. It has the misleading qualities—the recognizable music, the well-known leads, the multiple locations—that make viewers believe, at least initially, that it’s the type of rom-com they recognize from the days when such films were actually released theatrically instead of going straight to streaming. Because, needless to say, a “conventional” rom-com of this nature isn’t on the radar of any viewer who still remembers a time when rom-coms were given more reverence with an actual theatrical release.
And yet, even the ones that are (e.g., Anyone But You [generic titles are also on-trend for “nouveau rom-coms”], a fluke on the rom-com success front) can’t hold a candle to the peak days of the genre. Which is due for a major overhaul rather than an attempt at trying to “recreate” the way it was (not to be confused with The Way We Were). Specifically, in an epoch when it was much easier to buy into the idea of romance in the first place.
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