By the end of You’re Cordially Invited, the discerning viewer wants so badly to believe that Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell signed onto this project with the actual intent to troll the rom-com genre. But no, that quite simply isn’t the case. However, perhaps up until the moment when writer-director Nicholas Stoller (best known for such fare as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Yes Man, The Five-Year Engagement and Sex Tape) decides the two ought to “be together”—ergo, fulfill the expected cliché of all comedies with a man and a woman in the lead—one could have maybe tolerated the movie. If for no other reason than its “daringness” in keeping things between the two leads platonic (incidentally, the title of a much more innovative offering from Stoller). Cordial.
Unfortunately, though, You’re Cordially Invited can’t resist delighting in the time-honored trope at the eleventh hour. We’re talking totally tacked on as a sort of after-thought. Like, “Oh yeah, I guess we should have these two get together and make it a full rom-com instead of just a meh comedy.” But a meh comedy, in this case, would be far more bearable than a how-the-fuck-did-this-become-romantic? comedy. Because, at the outset, it seems as though the bulk of the narrative is going to lean on Jim Caldwell’s (Ferrell) realization that he is way too into his daughter, Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan). Not in a sexual manner, per se (though they’re duet of “Islands in the Stream” has many believing otherwise), but more in an overly-involved-to-the-nth-degree manner. Hence, his eagerness to help Jenni plan her wedding to Oliver (Stony Blyden)—even though he thinks it’s happening too fast and she’s too young (not entirely untrue, as she’s barely out of college).
While Jenni insists that her hard-partying friend, Heather (Keyla Monterroso Mejia), is going to plan it, Jim still takes the reins on calling the Palmetto House, a small inn on the fictional Palmetto Island in Georgia where Jim was married to his (now deceased) wife. Booking well in advance with Scarlett (Martha B. Knighton), the elderly innkeeper, Jim’s mind is put at ease when she confirms she’ll put his daughter’s name down for the weekend of June 1st next year, even telling him that, as “part of the family,” she won’t take his credit card info yet. But, in typical “hijinks required” fashion for a comedy, as Scarlett hangs up the phone and starts to write the name down, she realizes her pen is out of ink. Naturally, before she can find a working one, she keels over and dies.
This is why, when Margot Buckley (Witherspoon), a high-powered reality TV producer, calls to reserve the same date for her sister, Neve (Meredith Hagner), and her fiancé, Dixon (Jimmy Tatro), Scarlett’s son, Leslie (Jack McBrayer, never straying far from his role as Kenneth on 30 Rock), is happy to reserve the date. Blissfully unaware, of course, that his mother had already promised the same day to Jim. And so the stage is set for the inevitable clash of events and personalities. Particularly as Margot’s relationship with her nuclear family is already fraught in the first place without adding the vexing combination of Jim and Jenni into the mix—complete with their unhealthily “healthy” dynamic.
As for the reason why both parties are so adamant about having the wedding at the Palmetto House, like Jim, the venue has sentimental value to Margot and Neve, who spent many a summer on the island with their grandmother, Rosemary. In fact, the only time Margot didn’t feel like a black sheep in her family was during those summers (on a side note, Margot pointedly chooses to name her reality TV prodco Black Sheep Productions). Thus, she’s perhaps more committed to Neve getting married there than Neve is—in the same way that Jim is more committed to the venue than Jenni.
On the boat to the island (which sort of channels how all the guests at any White Lotus hotel have to take a boat together there as strangers), Jim and Margot both notice one another and can’t understand who the other person is and why they’re heading to the island when it’s obviously booked for “their” wedding. In other words, why would an interloper be going there? It doesn’t take too long for them to find out the answer, as the reality of the double-booking sinks in. Even though it’s really no double-booking at all, for Margot patently has the more legal right to be at the hotel. Because not only is her sister’s name actually written in the calendar, but she also gave her credit card information at the time of scheduling.
Regardless, Jim uses the argument that Scarlett promised it to him first, proving it by revealing the underlying etching of his daughter’s name on the same date by scribbling on the calendar with a pencil. And so, the argument between Jim and Margot begins. And it is here, during this initial back-and-forth “repartee” (presumably designed to have some sort of modern-day Tracy/Hepburn vibe), that the viewer should have realized where this was all going, should have known better than to ever believe that Stoller wouldn’t go in the expected direction of rendering this comedy into a “romance.” Never mind the approximate nine-year age difference between the pair (with Ferrell, unsurprisingly, being the older of the two of them—because a ten-year difference when a man is older is like three years in society’s eyes; whereas, if the genders were flipped, it would be far less accepted [see: Madonna with Guy Ritchie]).
And it is this age difference, too, that briefly leads the viewer into a false sense of security about the nature of the film. As though wanting us to believe that it was actually possible to shatter the trope that, just because a man and a woman are starring in a comedy together, it has to be romantic as well. Never mind the fact that there is zero chemistry between Ferrell and Witherspoon, though defenders of You’re Cordially Invited might argue that’s part of what makes it even “funnier.” Alas, the only thing “funny” about the movie is Hollywood’s continued commitment to selling the lie of happily ever after in romance (even in a movie as “self-aware” as Heart Eyes). Yet, how can they help it when it’s clearly the lie that audiences still want to believe?
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