Invitati per forza

Talk about contrived? Yikes! "Eloise" (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) makes the cardinal error of inviting her estranged and dysfunctional family to London for her posh wedding. Her brother "Paul" (Ben Platt) and his boyfriend "Dominic" (Karan Soni); her unpredictable and unreliable sister "Alice" (Kristen Bell) who is having an affair with her married, architect, boss and finally her mother "Donna" (Allison Janney). It seems that they all pretty much loathe each other in equal measure, but they all decide to attend and in so doing "Alice" hooks up with the handsome "Dennis" (Dustin Milligan - probably the only decent person in the whole thing) with the others going through the usual relationship tribulations that, aside from a fun scene in a Thames-side inflatable champagne dinghy - rarely raise even the faintest hint of a smile. What Miss Janney is doing in this is anyone's guess, and without a song to sing I am afraid that Platt is just, well flat! I think the trick with good comedy is having characters that we can at least like. I struggled here with all of them before the ending that could have been seen by a blind man from outer space. The soundtrack is quite good now and again, but otherwise the writing and direction offer us nothing at all new here and it almost left me wishing for Henry Golding's equally lacklustre Christmas effort from 2019!

This had the potential to be a funny film, instead I found myself kind of disgusted by some of the characters actions and dialogue. Very little was believable and some characters were really quite horrible, self absorbed, whiners. I know films are meant to exaggerate or be farcical sometimes but the situations these characters were in were so over the top it really made no sense. I wanted to root for at least one character but really didn't, none were that interesting and few had any redeeming qualities. Many reviewers commented on the location, I have to agree. London is a beautiful city and the best thing about the film is that it was mostly shot there.

100-minute stinker of a movie with hugely unlikable characters.

Annoying extended family of losers reunite in London for a pretentious wedding. That's about it.

Kristen Bell is way too old for playing the sap having an affair with her jerky boss. Then there's Ben Platt playing a gay dope who breaks up with this boyfriend at the wedding of the bi-racial sister.

Then there's Allison Janney as the ditz mother who seems to be having an affair with one of her ex-husbands. My guess is they're supposed to be screwball comedy tropes but they come off as annoying jerks.

One of the stupidest scenes has the bride and her screeching pals going for a ride in a hot tub on the Thames. Gee, I wonder if they'll fall into the river.

Really bad.

It is a decent movie that I watched with my wife and she enjoyed the silliness of it all. Plus she likes Allison Janney from the show Mom. Yes all the characters were cardboard but there were some hilarious parts.

The best line was where Mr. Bottom told Alice the real reason why she behaved the way she did around men.

Yes it was silly but what did you expect from these actors. In the end it had a nice ending and everyone was happy and content.

My wife watches movies that I like and she tolerates it. So I can do the same and tolerate the movies that she enjoys. All in all it made for a good evening and beyond! :)

We started this movie at the suggestion of the NYT, but after about 25 minutes we looked at each other and said, "Haven't laughed yet." Kristen Bell is cute and Allison Janney has her comedy chops, but this mish-mash is so disjointed and so reliant on cheap sex situations that we gave up and turned on the news. None of the characters were sympathetic and the opening sequences were so truncated and unclear that we found ourselves wondering who was who and why they mattered. It's too bad. The premise seemed to have great possibilities. Maybe it gets better by the end but where we stopped it seemed pointless.