'You're Cordially Invited' review: Reese Witherspoon, Will Ferrell deserve better

WHAT IT'S ABOUT When you book a wedding venue in real life, it requires multiple visits, endless payments, and months and months of planning.

In the world of "You're Cordially Invited," a romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell, you can simply call a venue, have the proprietor drop dead before writing your reservation down in a guest book, and then never check again until you arrive at the destination on the wedding weekend only to discover you've been double booked.

That's what happens to Jim (Ferrell) after he makes that first call on behalf of his daughter Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan) and then has planning duties seized by Jenni's unreliable maid of honor Heather (Keyla Monterroso Mejia).

The other wedding has been planned by Margot (Witherspoon), for her younger sister Neve (Meredith Hagner). Palmetto Island, a small resort run by Leslie ("30 Rock's" Jack McBrayer) has never handled two weddings simultaneously, but there's a first time for everything. 

MY SAY The best comedies find their humor in authenticity, in showcasing the absurdity that's inherent in daily existence.

The writer-director Nicholas Stoller knows his way around this territory. His credits include "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Neighbors." Both of those movies traded on the same sort of combative comic energy, but they had premises that warranted it. In the former, a heartbroken man runs into his ex on vacation. In the latter, a fraternity moves in next door to a young couple with a baby. This is the sort of stuff that might actually happen, giving the audience something relatable.

Even beyond the fact that no one would book a wedding venue with one phone call and then never follow up until the weekend in question, "You're Cordially Invited" fails that test.

The characters work out an equitable arrangement for sharing the island early on. But we know Jim and Margot have to be pitted against each other, because otherwise there's not much to the whole thing.

The stars are so sympathetic that the movie has to strain extra hard to get what it needs. It wheezes its way through a series of contrived misunderstandings that require these fundamentally decent people to act totally out of character. Jim overhears Margot cruelly bad-mouthing him and his daughter. Jim gets revenge by sabotaging their wedding ceremony. Things keep escalating to the point where an alligator gets involved.

This might have seemed funny on paper, but onscreen, it comes across as forced and mean-spirited. There's hardly a moment of drama in the Jim and Margot battle that's actually earned. And when things turn abruptly — remember, this is a romantic comedy, after all — it's even harder to tolerate.

The picture doesn't help itself with endless jokes about "Islands in the Stream," the Kenny Rogers-Dolly Parton duet from 1983. So hip. So edgy.

BOTTOM LINE Witherspoon and Ferrell are better than this, and so is everyone else involved.