“You’re Cordially Invited” - RSVP me for zero.

I am not a fan of cringe comedy. On the other hand, I’m really, really not a fan of cringe comedy. Everybody has their own tastes, but mine do not include long drawn-out jokes or watching people getting crapped on for two hours while not pushing back. You’re Cordially Invited isn’t fully cringe comedy, but it also isn’t not cringe comedy.

The premise of You’re Cordially Invited isn’t anything new. Two weddings are accidentally double-booked at the same time, date, and venue. Feelings get hurt. Shenanigans ensue. Weddings get ruined. Hardy har har. The immediate problem with this premise is that, by default, most people don’t want to see a wedding get ruined. So, getting them to laugh at a destroyed wedding, let alone two destroyed weddings, is a tough ask. Cringe comedy is practically baked into that premise.

Right out of the gates, the movie starts with a cringy joke. Alongside a pile of homemade baked goods, Jim (Will Ferrell) eagerly awaits his daughter Jenni’s (Geraldine Viswanathan) return home from graduating college. When he greets her at the door, they go through an elaborate greeting ritual that is neither funny nor adorable. If you laugh at this scene, you will love this movie. If you cringe at this scene, put your watch in your pocket because your chuckles will be few and far between.

Meanwhile, reality-TV producer Margot (Reese Witherspoon) gets a surprise work visit from her sister Neve (Meredith Hagner) and Neve’s fiancé Dixon (Jimmy Tatro), the couple informing Margot they are getting married. Waiting patiently for Margot’s attention is Peyton Manning. Yes, that Peyton Manning. Dixon even points out that Manning is waiting and Margot waives away his concern. Manning says nothing, even as Dixon is not-so-subtly snapping pictures of Manning. While the joke is initially mildly humorous, I found it cringeworthy because it goes on for way too long and Manning is actually pretty good at comedy. Writer/director Nicholas Stoller had an opportunity for some real comedy and chose awkward silence instead.

The setup of the premise itself was also cringy. When Jim calls the desired wedding venue, the old woman answering the phone tells him she doesn’t need his credit card, hangs up on him to look for a functioning pen, then has a heart attack and dies before finding the pen. When Margot calls, the old lady’s replacement takes down her information and credit card to reserve the venue. Jim never follows up and neither does Jenni’s obnoxious friend/wedding planner Heather (Keyla Monterroso Mejia)…for over a year. I know it’s a bit nitpicky, but a heart attack and zero follow-up is arguably the worst possible explanation for the double-booking. And definitely not a funny one.

After Margot wins the argument regarding who actually has the booking, she and Neve have a change of heart after learning that Jim got married on the island and his wife died of cancer. First of all, that’s hilarious. Second of all, no it’s not. Jim and Margot immediately come to an arrangement to share the venue, including rehearsal dinners and receptions. Problem solved, right? Of course not because then the movie would be over.

For the rest of the runtime, the film can’t decide what it wants to be. A straight comedy? A romantic comedy? A sappy, heartwarming family movie? A family drama? A horror comedy? There are so many subplots running parallel to the double-booked wedding premise that the weddings are almost as much of an afterthought as actual jokes. Instead of plumbing comedy out of Margot’s reality-TV-production background, we’re treated to ridiculous southern accents, Margot’s overly horny sister, and Margot mildly butting heads with her disapproving mother (Celia Weston). Instead of letting Ferrell do his thing (full disclosure, I’m not a fan of Ferrell’s typical schtick, but others are), we’re forced to endure Jim and Jenni get into awkward arguments, sing a duet of “Islands in the Stream,” and watch Jim force Heather read all of a Dr. Seuss book as part of the wedding ceremony. And when what little clash between Margot and Jim ensues (after Jim overhears Margot say Jenni has road-whore hair), you’ll find yourself sympathizing with the victims rather than laughing at their misfortune.

I realize that I am tougher crowd than most. I probably set my expectations a little too high because I really wanted to laugh for a couple of hours because 2025 has not started out funny at all.  But this film was essentially a less-funny Bride Wars and Bride Wars wasn’t very funny at all. You’re Cordially Invited is a sloppy movie from a plot standpoint and a lazy movie from a comedy standpoint. And don’t even get me started on the very predictably and very cringy romance road that I spent most of the movie hoping they wouldn’t drive down. I told you - this movie wasn’t fully cringy. But it was still pretty cringy.

Rating: Ask for eighteen dollars back and try not to cringe when you do it.

“Downhill” - Dear cruel world.

The advantage in avoiding all trailers for a movie is that you do not know what is coming. Unfortunately, that is also the danger. What little I knew going into the screening of Downhill was that it starred Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus and was about a family on ski trip. IMDb categorized it as a comedy/drama, so, naturally, I went into the theater expecting a comedy. Because, of course I did. Everyone did. Plus, it opens on Valentine’s Day and what better movie for a date night than a fun family ski comedy? As it turns out, literally every movie would be a better option for a date night than Downhill. Upon the end of the film, my immediate thought was “it’s a good thing I don’t take notes during screenings because mine would have been a suicide note.”

As soon as the studio name appeared on the screen, I knew I had made a horrible mistake. Fox Searchlight, for those of you who aren’t familiar with them, is the arthouse arm of 20th Century Fox (or was, now that both are owned by Disney) and does not make the standard, low-brow comedies typical of Will Ferrell, like Anchorman or Talladega Nights. When they make comedies, they tend to be subtle, quirky, or even dark comedies like Super Troopers, The Way, Way Back, or Jojo Rabbit. Then, the movie confirmed it by starting with a wide shot of the French Alps while playing quirky music of the type that has never been heard in a Will Ferrell movie outside of Stranger Than Fiction. Definitely not the hallmarks of what one would call a funny romp.

They look like they are having as much fun as the audience.

The short of it is Downhill makes Marriage Story seem like a festival of joy. Ferrell plays Pete, a husband and father of two middle-school aged boys, on a skiing vacation with his family. The audience is immediately made uncomfortable by the family as they try to pose for a picture at the top of a ski run, bickering with each other as a Frenchman snaps photos. I know - hilarious, right? Well, the majority of the film is this scene over and over again, just in different locations. Eventually, we learn that Pete and his wife Billie (Dreyfus) are having marital problems, but we are never told what those problems actually are. We just see the culmination of Billie’s anger and Pete’s emotional absence brought on by...years of having to look at each other’s stupid faces? Too much device screen time? Whose NBC show generated more money?

To put it another way, Downhill’s entire purpose seems to be to make the audience as uncomfortable and awkward as possible. Pete is a depressed Clark Griswold doing everything he can to avoid the confrontation he knows is coming. The entire trip was his idea to spend time with his family without taking his family into consideration. He pushes them to hit the slopes every day, invites a work buddy and his girlfriend (Zach and Rosie, respectively) to stop by their hotel for dinner, books them at a resort for adults instead of the nearby family resort, and even books an excursion to be helicoptered to the top of a mountain despite one his sons clearly not able to ski terrain that difficult. I know - hilarious, right?

Kill me. Kill me now.

The awkwardness continues when Billie snaps on multiple occasions and none of them are fun to sit through. One is during the helicopter scene when they can’t find one of the kids’ gloves, followed by another scene featuring Billie and Pete screaming at each other in front of Zach and Rosie (after the family has a close shave with an avalanche). It is every point in your life when two people argued with each other in front of you, but times one thousand. And that is before we get to Charlotte (Miranda Otto), a kind of hands-on concierge who was so pushy and obnoxious Billie would have been forgiven had she pushed Charlotte off the chair lift. Based on all of this, it is no wonder that Dreyfus comes off as if she is a hostage forced to be in this film.

Thankfully, this travesty only lasted eighty minutes (despite feeling like nine hours). Thirty minutes in and I was ready to walk out. It takes a lot for me to want to leave a movie early and having to sit through fifty minutes after hitting my threshold was excruciating. Not only was the movie not a comedy, it was devoid of anything even resembling humor. Yet, for reasons that defy humanity, a handful of audience members were laughing during parts of the movie. To be clear, it was not as if they were laughing at attempted jokes; they were laughing at parts that were clearly not intended as jokes. I don’t know if it was nervous laughter or they have a condition like Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, but it made an uncomfortable experience that much more awkward. I can only assume they were trying to make the best of a date gone horribly wrong.

Rating: Ask for all of your money back and give it to whomever agreed to go with you.