Movie Review: 'You're Cordially Invited'

Because Jeff Bezos Thinks You’re An Idiot

Watching Amazon Studios’ “You’re Cordially Invited” is a very 2025 experience, like shouting into an iPhone at customer service AI or hoping that your health insurance company will actually pay for the medicine your doctor prescribed.

Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon star in this unfunny, by-the-numbers wedding comedy. It is a thinly-veiled rehash of 2009’s “Bride Wars” which, although panned by critics, grossed $115.8 million against a production budget of $30 million. A cynical cash grab remake was inevitable.

The double booking occurs in the first 15 minutes. The action moves quickly into a series of wedding comedy tropes in the following order: a hidden pregnancy, a karaoke duet, a drunken wedding toast, a cartoonish black eye, a collapsed boat dock, a mistaken sighting of a philandering groom, a dancing zebra, a fallen wedding cake, a fire, a fake heart attack, alligator wrestling (“see ya later, alligator!”), a medical emergency reuniting feuding sisters, an annulment, and a proposal with a performance by Chippendale dancers wearing red underwear that reads “she said yes.”

The madcap hijinks are shown in slow motion and scored by Italian opera, because how else would you know when to laugh? The forced wackiness is punctuated by loud, off-putting emotional encounters among dysfunctional family members who are either confessing long-held secrets or unloading decades of emotional resentment.

“You’re Cordially Invited” is like eating at Chili’s: everything sucks but there is a lot of it. Every wall on the set is covered floor to ceiling with framed images, and extras fill every frame to bursting.

I watched this thing twice (you’re welcome!) and did my best to note both the product placements that mitigated Amazon’s sunk costs and the topical references substituting for cultural relevance. These include Ozempic™️, gaslighting, the LA fires, The Masked Singer, language policing, the phrase “I hear your truth,” the 2025 Chevy Suburban, and Delta Air Lines.

Also, Peyton Manning and Nick Jonas appear for some reason.

Leanne Morgan

The one bright spot was stand-up comedian Leanne Morgan as Gwyneth, Reese Witherspoon’s sister from Atlanta. Her dead-eyed suburbanite had the funniest lines, including “my house is going to be featured in ‘Garden and Gun!’” and “I got a spray tan if you’re wondering what that smell is.”

This hour and a half reminder that our corporate masters think we’re idiots is the last thing we need right now.

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“You’re Cordially Invited” is produced by Amazon Studios. Rated R for coarse language and sexual references. 109 minutes.