Table 19

A former maid of honor (Anna Kendrick), who withdrew from the wedding party when the bride’s brother (Wyatt Russell) dumped her, winds up sitting at the table reserved for the losers who didn’t have the sense to RSVP their regrets. Writer-director Jeffrey Blitz, working from a story by Mark and Jay Duplass, turns all the overworked wedding-comedy clichés inside out; just when we think we know where a gag will lead, the movie surprises us with a subversive twist we should have seen coming but didn’t. Blitz instills a lurching sweetness to the action that might look amateurish in a different movie, but it works here; like the hapless denizens of that table (Lisa Kudrow, Craig Robinson, June Squibb, Stephen Merchant, Tony Revolori), we squirm through some awkward moments but in the end we’re glad we came.