You’re Cordially Invited Review

Time inevitably turns every wild and crazy guy into an anxious father of the bride. In the new dueling nuptials comedy You’re Cordially Invited, Will Ferrell follows Steve Martin and Adam Sandler into the role of a doting dad forced to accept that his little girl is getting hitched. Jim, an overprotective widower, looks like one of Ferrell’s gentler and more dignified kooks; maybe it’s the distinguished white stubble that marks the former Saturday Night Live star as a goofball of a certain age. But once Jim gets the big news, out pours a familiar, bellowed stream of petulant expletives. What, you expected a Will Ferrell character to take his empty-nest syndrome lying down?

Cold feet on pops’ part isn’t the only something borrowed writer/director Nicholas Stoller borrows for You’re Cordially Invited. From the deservedly forgotten Bride Wars, he lifts the nightmare scenario of two ceremonies double-booked at the same dreamy dream venue on the same June weekend. Thanks to a mix up, Jim’s twentysomething daughter, Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan, already a pro at enduring overbearing paternalism, thanks to her starring role in Blockers), has to share the picturesque island hotel they’ve picked with another wedding. Complications naturally arise, as Jim misdirects his melancholy into a conflict with TV producer Margot (Reese Witherspoon), the sister of the other bride, Neve (Meredith Hagner). Margot, who’s working through some abandonment issues of her own, is a good foil for the doofy dad, and a classic Witherspoon heroine – tightly wound and screwball at once.

Stoller, who made the Neighbors movies (among other comedies of delayed maturation, human and Muppet alike), certainly has experience escalating a petty turf war of pranks, pratfalls, and divided allegiances. He’s also a Judd Apatow acolyte, so expect a robust supporting cast of cut-ups. The doubled guest list means double the kooky relatives, throwing elbows trying to steal a scene or laugh like bridesmaids scrambling to catch a bouquet. We get Keyla Monterroso Mejia as an overzealous sorority-girl maid of honor, Jack McBrayer as the hotel’s nervously cowed proprietor, and American Vandal star Jimmy Tatro as one of the grooms to be, a likable lug of Channing Tatum profile, down to the Chippendales career his prospective new family scornfully regards. (Someone get this knucklehead his own Magic Mike already.)

If you’ve ever attended a reception with too many speeches or activities on the itinerary, you’ll recognize how You’re Cordially Invited strains to deliver a boozy good time. There’s something a little panicked, maybe desperate about the way Stoller handles his party-planning duties. The hijinks are plentiful, but hit or miss. A daddy-daughter duet of “Islands in the Stream” is an echo of an ancient Arrested Development bit, and hardly funnier for how the other characters call out its incestuous optics. Much more fruitfully, Stoller keys into some classic 30 Rock absurdity (McBrayer is a token of good luck in that respect) with a daffy throwaway gag about a reality show where contestants determine if a motionless animal is dead or alive. But rather than leave it as an inspired non sequitur, the filmmaker cues up a callback when Jim gets into a trailer-friendly, barndoor-broad wrestling match with an alligator. There are also mirthless cameos à la Apatow, with Peyton Manning playing himself to no particularly amusing end and Nick Jonas getting a couple scenes as a Creed-crooning preacher.

Naturally, copious sweetness undercuts the sour of Jim and Margot’s increasingly destructive attempts to sabotage each other’s concurrent events. This is one of those stealth sapfests that depends on its characters behaving like shrill, unreasonable lunatics one minute and sympathetic softies the next. These two aren’t so different after all, you see. Jim has to let his little bird fly off. Margot has to let go of the resentment she harbors for her estranged, eccentric Southern family, including a mother (veteran character actress Celia Weston) less toxically judgemental than we’re initially led to believe. Of course, what these two clashing clans really have in common is obscene wealth – the nest egg you’d need to reserve an entire island for your festivities. (To its credit, the movie acknowledges this with the belated punchline of what Jim does for a living.)

At least the leads are spirited, even if they sometimes seem to be headlining two different movies, as awkwardly crammed together as the parallel parties. Witherspoon, back in her Sweet Home Alabama sweet spot, does type-A fluster with grade-A conviction, before charmingly loosening up. And it’s oddly poignant seeing Ferrell age into a more wizened version of himself. He’s still doing a variation on the shtick that made him famous – the gawky, mild-mannered doofus with impulse control issues, prone to profane outbursts – but the years have softened his edges. Man babies: They grow up so slowly, until next thing you know, they’re blubbering about their own growing babies.