Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The seas may dry up and the mountains fall, but nothing will stop the surge of films about wedding disasters. Somewhere there will always be collapsing cakes, banshee bridesmaids and families split down the middle who desperately need some third-act closure. Writer-director Nicholas Stoller’s innovation is to give us a twofer — competing weddings double-booked at a small country-luxe island hotel — plus a new twist on the uninvited guest: a convincingly twitchy alligator.Comic stalwart Will Ferrell is Jim, doting widowed dad to Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan) and soon-to-be father-in-law of amateur DJ Oliver (Stony Blyden). That’s wedding number one. The other team is fronted by the irrepressibly feisty Reese Witherspoon as Margot, producer of reality TV shows with titles such as Is It Really Dead, who is in charge of nuptials for her beloved younger sister Neve (Meredith Hagner) and amiably dopey Chippendale dancer Dixon (Jimmy Tatro). Margot and Jim initially thrash out the situation with quivering receptionist Leslie (Jack McBrayer, reprising his role in 30 Rock) and agree to divide the time and space. Lost already? There are dozens of names to remember here, many of them Southern-fried double barrels: another reliable wedding gag.Stoller’s previous credits include Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Get Him to the Greek (2010) and the underrated Bad Neighbours (2014); his dialogue and instinct for familial malice are both razor-sharp. Witherspoon, in particular, delivers his zingers with the unerring aim of a screwball comedy heroine. Too often, however, that sparkle gets caught in the mechanics of everything going wrong, being recovered and then going wrong again. A storm forces the two parties into the same room during the rehearsal — disaster — but DJ Oliver gets everyone frisking libidinously on the dance floor: situation temporarily saved. Eventually, the pile-up of increasingly absurd calamities collapses — as it must — into the weeds of sentiment. It’s all entertaining enough, but you do wish Stoller could have reined in the slapstick, stabled the alligator and let the talking do the talking.★★★☆☆On Amazon Prime Video now
