“You’re Cordially Invited” (2025) is a Mean-Spirited Comedy (Part II of II)

(Continued from Part I)

The film begins to go off the rails when, in a conversation with her four siblings, Margot criticizes Jim for being overly involved in Jenni’s life. Jim overhears this conversation and decides to seek revenge by sabotaging the Buckley wedding.

From here, the movie turns increasingly unpleasant. First, Jim prolongs Jenni’s wedding to deprive Neve of her moment in the sunset. Then he arranges for a boat to drive by the pier just as Neve is giving her vows, which results in the pier collapsing and Buckleys falling into the river. Margot suspects Jim is behind all of this, and when she confirms that’s the case, she takes revenge on the Caldwells by first sabotaging the wedding cake that Jim had baked for his daughter, and then by insinuating that Jenni’s recently-married husband Oliver (Stony Blyden) was kissing a bridesmaid.

By the time Jenni and Oliver leave the venue on the verge of breaking up, it’s not believable that Jim and Margot can work together to save the young couple’s relationship. It’s one thing if there was some heart in their meanness à la “Meangirls” (2004), but for most of the movie, they’re simply vicious to each other. It strains credulity that they can make up after a wholly unfunny sequence involving an alligator.

The biggest mistake of this film was matching Reese Witherspoon with this script. Witherspoon has been in her share of romantic movies–most famously in “Sweet Home Alabama” (2002)–and she’s always played sweet characters in them, even in the often mean-spirited “Cruel Intentions” (1999). So what made director Nicholas Stoller think Witherspoon can pull off the role he wrote for her character?

Of course, a movie this misguided has trouble getting the small things right. Peyton Manning, who can be funny in Saturday Night Live sketches, is quite literally ignored in his cameo appearance. The editing was noticeably off, too; several scenes annoyingly cut off half a second too early.

But all the small faults pales in comparison to the ill-conceived tone of the film. I’ve started to get used to bad movies released exclusively on Amazon Prime, like “The People We Hate at the Wedding” (2022), “Cinderella” (2021), and “Coming 2 America” (2021), but this one was the most painful to watch, if only because I never wanted to see Witherspoon being so unlikable.