Jim’s daughter, Jenni, is his whole world. Ever since his wife (Jenni’s mother) died, he’s done everything he can to ensure Jenni’s happiness.
And what would make Jenni happy is to get married at the Palmetto House, a quaint inn on a private island where her parents got married.
Jim isn’t going to let Jenni down. He makes the call and books the whole island for June 1.
But he’s not the only one making a call to the island …
Margot doesn’t like her family, and they don’t like her—except for her baby sister, Neve, that is. Ever since they were little girls, Margot and Neve have had each other’s backs. And Neve acts as a sort of peacemaker between Margot and the rest of the fam.
So when Neve says she wants to get married at the Palmetto House, the place she and Margot spent countless summers with their beloved grandmother, Margot is on it. She makes the call and books the whole island for June 1.
Wait, that can’t be right, can it?
Unfortunately, due to the untimely death of the innkeeper, there was a bit of a clerical error, and the Palmetto House is double booked. The mistake might have been remedied sooner, but Jenni asked her sorority sister, a notorious party girl with an inhibiting fear of phone calls, to plan the wedding, and the young woman never thought to confirm the reservation.
No worries, Jim is there to save his little girl’s big day. It takes a little negotiating—not to mention a lot of emotional manipulation—but eventually, Margot agrees to share the venue with Jim.
You’re cordially invited to the wedding of Jenni and Oliver. You’re also cordially invited to the wedding of Neve and Dixon.
At first glance, the relationship between Jim and Jenni is touching. Few father-daughter duos are as sweet and caring. However, as the film progresses, it becomes clear that Jenni and Jim have some serious problems.
Jenni feels that her dad’s happiness is dependent on her own. So, she frequently lies to him in order to spare his feelings. Similarly, Jim worries that if he shows any negative emotion, especially sadness, he’ll make things harder for Jenni. As a result, neither of them has fully processed their grief from the passing of Jenni’s mom.
However, the chaos that ensues over the wedding weekend brings them together like never before. It’s difficult, but they finally learn to be honest with each other. And they set new, healthy boundaries for their relationship that allow them to flourish.
Unlike her three siblings, Margot was never interested in getting married or starting a family. She decided to pursue her career and has become a very successful TV producer. However, this created a bit of a wedge between her and her mother, namely because it forced Margot to move across the country. But rather than talk these issues through, Margot and her family opted to avoid each other instead.
So, Margot feels unwanted and disliked. Her mom feels abandoned and disrespected. But as they come together for Neve’s wedding, Margot and her mother both realize how much they’ve misjudged each other. They admit to their mistakes and stop avoiding each other, agreeing to make their mother-daughter relationship a priority since they do, in fact, love each other. Margot’s also able to reconcile with her siblings, who simply miss having her around. They also come to her aid, even though they’re upset with her for some unkind comments.
Jim and Margot behave quite poorly toward each other after some unkind remarks, with both trying to ruin the other family’s wedding. However, they eventually reconcile their differences, apologizing for their behaviors and trying to make things right.
Two pastors wear cross necklaces. One of them turns a wedding ceremony into a personal concert. Jenni’s fiancé promises to love and treat her as Jesus would during his vows (though it appears the filmmakers are perhaps mocking Christians in this). Someone jokes about ghosts.
Both of the film’s young couples live together before their weddings. Neve is actually pregnant—a fact she attempts to keep hidden from her family, fearing their disapproval. Elsewhere, a newlywed couple annuls their marriage, but they continue to date and live together.
Neve’s fiancé, Dixon, is an exotic dancer. He and several of his friends perform a gyrating dance at the film’s end, removing clothing to reveal formfitting underwear. They dance similarly (though without the removal of clothes) in other scenes.
Someone tells Jenni that her new husband, Oliver, made out with one of her bridesmaids. To get back at him, she grinds on a few of his groomsmen and kisses two guys. He retaliates by kissing another woman. It’s revealed that the whole thing was a misunderstanding (it was a groomsman kissing the bridesmaid), but the newlyweds are greatly hurt by each other’s actions.
Jim and Jenni sing a duet with sexually suggestive lyrics, and onlookers (including Oliver) are disturbed by this performance, calling it incestuous. (It’s later revealed Jenni’s parents used to sing her the song to help her fall asleep. This makes the choice less creepy, but the decision to sing such a song to someone so young is still questionable.)
We hear that the pastor who conducted Neve and Dixon’s premarital counseling hit on Neve. Several women ogle another young pastor and make inappropriate remarks. Margot and Neve’s sister, Gwyneth, hits on several men at the wedding (including Dixon) even though she’s married. (She also grinds on Jim during a dance.) Their mom makes a few suggestive remarks about Jim. A couple of Margot’s nephews clearly have crushes on her. A woman crassly describes the effect of aging on breasts.
A few different couples kiss. Several women wear formfitting dresses baring cleavage. A woman brags she had sex with a famous person. Jim, in an attempt to be more honest, tells Jenni that he had a three-way with two widows after his wife passed away and that he misses having sex with his wife. Afterward, realizing that this information was inappropriate to share, he agrees to keep that part of his life private.
One member of Jenni’s bridal party is an effeminate young man who wears a pink shirt and pants matching the bridesmaids’ dresses instead of the suit that the groomsmen wear. A few other men act effeminately, too.
The pastor who hit on Neve during her premarital counseling otherwise acts inappropriately toward women, harassing them and trying to find excuses to touch them.
Margot discovers Jim in her bed, holding an alligator. He tells her he caught the beast hoping to release it in her room (to scare her) but fears he accidentally killed it. She informs him that the reptile is not dead, and almost immediately it proves her right by writhing out of Jim’s arms. Jim wrestles the animal out the window, but Margot gets bitten on the arm, which someone bandages for her.
A woman clutches her chest and collapses to the ground. We later learn she died from a heart attack. Elsewhere, a man pretends to have a heart attack to get attention.
Jim smashes a glass cup, cutting his hand badly. A man jumps off a dock, trying to land on a boat. Unfortunately, he misses, and there’s a resounding smack as he hits the back of the boat headfirst and then falls into the water. A woman gets a nasty black eye after someone accidentally hits her with a microphone. The same woman has a candle flare up in her face after someone splashes alcohol on the open flame. A dock collapses, sending a wedding party into the water, though nobody is hurt. Property is damaged elsewhere.
We see an ad for a TV show called Is It Dead? wherein contestants try to determine if animals are dead or alive. Several young women repeatedly smack Jim and physically block his path as he tries to talk to Jenni. There are threats of physical violence.
There are nearly 40 uses of the f-word, 20 uses of the s-word and a single use of the c-word. God’s name is abused almost 30 times, twice paired with “d–n,” and Jesus’ name is misused another four. We also hear multiple uses of “a–,” “a–hole,” “b–ch,” “d–n” and “h—.”
Women are called several crudely demeaning names, including “skank” and “whore.” And when a group of young people start chanting the b-word as a weird form of praise for Jenni, her dad awkwardly tries to change the chant to “my lovely daughter,” not appreciating the use of profanity to describe her, even in a quasi-positive way.
Margot drinks heavily at Neve’s rehearsal dinner when their family stresses her out. Neve is adamant about having a drink of her own even though she’s pregnant, so Margot drinks Neve’s beverages to stop her. As a result, she becomes quite inebriated, slurring her words and making poor decisions.
People drink heavily throughout the film. Jenni’s wedding planner is described as a “party girl.” A guy makes a joke about people who smoke marijuana before hypocritically vaping.
Jenni and her friends are all feminists. Unfortunately, in their efforts to prevent sexist remarks and attitudes, they wind up acting pretty sexist themselves. They repeatedly misuse the term “gaslighting”—several of them assert that all men constantly gaslight women—until someone finally explains what it means. They admit their mistake, but their attitudes toward men could still be perceived as rather toxic. Elsewhere, Margot’s brother legitimately acts sexist, calling his wife “the wife,” as though she were an object and not a person.
Jim sometimes treats Oliver poorly. That’s because he resents that Oliver didn’t ask for permission to marry Jenni and because he thinks the two are too young to get married. Similarly, many people in Neve’s family are rude to Dixon because they think he’s dumb and disapprove of the fact that he’s an exotic dancer.
We hear that a woman hasn’t been eating in order to lose weight for a wedding. Margot takes advantage of one of her subordinates, forcing him to help her with wedding planning and work during a holiday. There’s a joke about racism. Someone talks about how dogs sniff each other’s rears. Someone dry heaves. People lie.
What makes a good romcom? Is it the meet-cute? Is it the will-they-won’t-they drama? Is it the spunky best friend who offers up sage advice when you least expect it?
Well, Amazon’s You’re Cordially Invited has none of that. And to be honest, I question just what was going through the creator’s heads. Because if someone deliberately tried to ruin the wedding of someone I cared about—if they unleashed an alligator in my bedroom, gave the bride a black eye, dowsed the wedding party with water during the ceremony or destroyed the wedding cake I had baked myself—I don’t think I’d be falling in love with that person. But that’s just me.
Unfortunately, bizarre circumstances are hardly the film’s only faults. Foul language—including nearly 40 f-words—permeates every scene. We see a lot of what I would describe as toxic feminism: women who rightly want to stop using sexist stereotypes but wind up overcompensating, accusing men of sexism where it isn’t present. Several women also misuse terms that refer to abuse anytime someone tries to correct them. Sexual references are pretty common, too. And several married women hit on Dixon (one of the grooms, who is an exotic dancer) and a young pastor (who also behaves pretty poorly himself).
So what’s the verdict on You’re Cordially Invited? You’re cordially invited to not watch this film.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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