You’re Cordially Invited

The rehearsal is more fun than the reception in You’re Cordially Invited, a highly uneven romantic comedy with diminishing returns.

Balancing some genuine big laughs with some baffling narrative missteps, this broad mix of crudeness and cuteness from director Nicholas Stoller (Neighbors) is content to coast on the magnetic power of its stars.

The film is set almost entirely on a quaint Georgia island that’s home to a historic wedding venue, which has been double-booked for two mostly dysfunctional families.

Cue the confusion when both parties arrive simultaneously, and the ensuing animosity between Jim (Will Ferrell), the father of one bride, and Margot (Reese Witherspoon), the sister of the other. Cultures clash, too, between Jim’s more progressive and diverse family and Margot’s brood steeped in stuffy Deep South traditions.

Jim is a free-spirited widower whose relationship with daughter (Geraldine Viswanathan) is clingy to an unhealthy extent. Margot is a reality television producer whose efforts to please her sister (Meredith Hagner) are countered by lingering hostility from her overbearing mother (Celia Weston).

“You squeezed so many insults into so few words,” Margot tells her after one admonishment. “It was like an insult haiku.”

As both sides map out a tenuous plan to coexist through the weekend, it only fuels a chaotic atmosphere of anxiety, jealousy, bickering, and backstabbing.

With eccentrics filling out the guest list for both gatherings, everyone is a target in Stoller’s playful screenplay — designed to make you both chuckle and cringe — which pokes fun at Cotton Belt stereotypes, knee-jerk moral outrage, and the superficiality of destination weddings.

Lively performances at least lend charisma to a contrived premise that otherwise requires a significant suspension of disbelief. Accepting the detachment from reality, the cycle of mean-spirited schemes and half-hearted apologies is frequently amusing and occasionally hilarious for a while.

Eventually, the film becomes overburdened with quirks. Too many of Ferrell’s “hip dad” gags are labored. Worse yet, the momentum stalls in the second half when the script tries to justify the obnoxious self-absorption of Jim and Margot as a plea for sympathy from two insecure loners who lack self-awareness in repairing their relationships.

By check-out time, the film and its characters have worn out their welcome. Rather than toasting You’re Cordially Invited, it’s better to just send your regrets.

Rated R, 109 minutes.