The 2025 movie calendar has already provided some great options for those taking a trip to the theater, but honestly, isn’t it great to sometimes be able to enjoy A-list talent from the comfort of your own sofa? To that end, Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon would like to cordially invite you to You’re Cordially Invited, a new rom-com available with an Amazon Prime Video subscription. Fans have been looking forward to seeing “Willerspoon” finally come together on-screen, and critics — who screened the movie ahead of its January 30 release — are here to tell us if those high hopes will be fulfilled.
Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon are apparently “the pairing that you didn’t know you needed,” the SNL alum said, as You’re Cordially Invited sees Jim and Margot go to war when they discover his daughter’s wedding venue has been double-booked with Margot’s sister’s wedding. Briana Zigler of AV Club, however, says she had trouble finding any humor in this lazy romantic comedy. The critic gives it a D, writing:
You’re Cordially Invited is a rigorously unoriginal and uncreative film, in compliance with the flat mundanity of content that the streaming giants want their audiences to bask in. Ferrell’s smiling, goofball face at the forefront of this monotony feels like the waving white flag of an unchallenged artist who would rather just give in.
Brian Truitt of USA TODAY agrees, giving it 1.5 stars out of 4 for failing to find the tonal balance between dark satire and lighthearted rom-com. What’s more, Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell lack chemistry as both friends and enemies. Truitt says:
It’s best to just be wide-eyed about this unfortunate rom-com situation: There’s not really much fun at all to be had. Written and directed by Nicholas Stoller – who’s far from the wry highs of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Neighbors here – You’re Cordially Invited is like the worst wedding you’ve ever gone to. It’s a bizarrely off-kilter affair that’s forcibly heartfelt and sentimental in one scene and overly mean-spirited in the next, and not even a few choice moments and some enjoyable surrounding weirdos can help two A-listers in way over their heads.
Justin Clark of Slant also rates You’re Cordially Invited 1.5 out of 4 stars, saying this marriage of talents was doomed from the start. The film doesn’t allow Reese Witherspoon to stretch her comedic muscles, while Will Ferrell has the opposite problem, forcing even subtle jokes into ridiculous realms. Clark continues:
You’re Cordially Invited follows an emotionally honest confrontation about how lonely it can be for Margot to return to her low-class origins after making it in L.A. with a scene where Jim wrestles an alligator. It then follows the abject, purposeful cringe of Jim and Jenni singing ‘Islands in the Stream’ with Margot telling a panicking Jenni that even her mistakes are worthwhile. There’s a rather lovely film waiting to be made from the ingredients here, playing off of some genuinely affecting anxieties plaguing two very different families, but the actual film is ultimately at war with the much cartoonish hijinks that it clearly feels that it’s contractually obligated to provide.
Lisa Laman of Culturess says the movie starts off strong but ultimately devolves into terrible dialogue and tired rom-com tropes. In Laman’s words:
Any movie where Will Ferrell mournfully recalls ‘the saddest threeway of all-time’ with two other widows can’t be all bad. Ditto a film where Witherspoon often looks like she’s two seconds away from jabbing a shard of glass in people’s throats. Unfortunately, those chaotic qualities are the exception rather than the norm in Invited’s runtime. The most magical moments at weddings are often unplanned surprises. What a shame, then, that You’re Cordially Invited’s so committed to inflexible storytelling impulses and lame ham-fisted dialogue.
John Serba of Decider says You’re Cordially Invited is almost funny enough and almost heartwarming enough, but ultimately the critic finds it “too long, too pointlessly chaotic and ultimately too blah to recommend.” Serba explains:
You’re Cordially Invited is a shade or two too zany for its own good. That might be acceptable if its comedy was more sharply honed, and less dependent on the wearisome tropes of the genre – there are too many misses among the many misunderstandings, miscommunications and mishaps here. Jim and Margot are given a few opportunities to reckon with their occasional forays into selfish, juvenile behavior and become legit human beings, but they find themselves swept into the tornado of anarchic tumult that Stoller insists is funnier than it is. Anyone expecting this assemblage of talent to yield inspired farce will be disappointed.
Critics have given the movie a 43% Rotten Tomatoes score, with the audience’s Popcornmeter only slightly higher at 56%. This may not go down as one of Will Ferrell’s funniest movies or rank up there with the best of Reese Witherspoon, but if you feel like this duo is too good to pass up, of course you should check it out yourself and draw your own conclusions.
