Directed By Kat Coiro

Starring – Halle Bailey, Rege-Jean Page, Marco Calvani

The Plot – Anna (Bailey), a down on her luck young adult, crashes at an empty Italian villa, posing as the owner’s fiancée, she discovers an unexpected romance that may transform her life.

Rated PG-13 for some strong adult language, and sexual material.

YOU, ME & TUSCANY | Official Trailer

POSITIVES

Despite the many unmistakable traits of my previously earned reservations with romantic comedies finding their way to the movie’s execution, there are some fascinating components to fans of the subgenre that will ultimately endear them to the versatility of Coiro’s direction, particularly the stirred ingredients of culture and fantasy that will undoubtedly have the ladies in the audience swooning for a whisked away love story full of intoxicating scenery and mouth-watering dishes that authentically tap into Italian culture at its most richly luxurious. Above all else, the decision to shoot this movie on-location in Tuscany not only breeds an effortlessly immersive form of escapism to Danny Ruhlman’s cinematography, involving the scenic splendor of establishing shots and elegant backdrops that paint a sunbaked canvas to the movie’s presentation, but also affectionately taps into the warmth and emanating radiance of family-first ideals that feel like a warm hug inflicted on the interpretation of an adoring audience, all the while taking ample opportunity to zero in on these irresistibly savory forms of food pornography that will undoubtedly tickle your tummy while the movie’s dynamic duo aim for your heart. On that transitional opportunity, while the chemistry between Bailey and Page leaves slightly more to be desired, in terms of alluring magnetism, each of their individualized performances breed a charmingly charismatic consistency to character that certainly lends itself naturally to the necessities of romantic comedies, but beyond that really brings these characters to life against a lack of detailing and commitment to the storytelling that makes some strange choices in its immediate outlining. Aside from each of them being such beautifully pristine personifications of physical specimens, they each lend a lot of personality and psychology to the depths of their respective characters, with Bailey’s softly gentle sweet nature and adventurous curiosity making her instantly endearing to the adoration of the audience, while Page’s initially reserved stoicism during clashing confrontations with Anna meticulously gives way to a sweeter and sensual side that does involve at least one shirtless scene for the ladies in the audience, and while the movie surrounding their herculean efforts is nearly crumbling down around them, Bailey and Page are fully invested to the self-aware sensibilities that drive Coiro’s well-versed direction in the rich history of this subgenre, providing a showcasing for talents that will involve so many bigger and better future projects for both of them. Aside from an enveloping in the Italian culture and effectively endearing performances from its two main leads, the film isn’t against indulging in the very ridiculousness that stitches so many of these genre-driven films together under one roof, particularly Coiro’s evidentially absorbing experience with the subgenre that remembers to include all of those familiarly effective moments that a paying audience came to see. While the comedic material itself leaves plenty more to be desired in the screenwriting from Ryan and Kristin Engle, those needle-moving moments pertaining to long-winded speeches, requited signaling in the intimate scope between characters, and obviously physical interaction, felt like the rare moments when this movie was on the right track, even in its overreliance on previously exploited elements that at this point are cliches within themselves, and if not for the abundance of bewildering decisions enacted by this movie’s creativity, there was a possibly realistic world where You, Me & Tuscany cemented a place of its own in an overcrowded subgenre, especially one utilizing that rare ethnic geographic that certainly deserved more focused opportunities than those conjured in this overly flawed engagement.

NEGATIVES

Whether fair or not, the rumored fate of romantic comedies seems to rest on the financial success of this movie’s box office attraction, and while I’m a movie fanatic who thinks that every genre deserves a cemented place in theatrical cinema, this movie isn’t the film to unfairly rest all of the hopes and ambitions of future projects on, especially since it abides by so many of the genre-dependent aspects that absorb so many of these films tangibly under one roof, allowing so very few of them to creatively or structurally break the mold, in ways that predictably doom the opportunity. If predictability was the single biggest problem that this movie faced, then I could at least give it the benefit of the doubt of feeling like so many other predecessors before it, but the aforementioned script from the Engles not only clumsily stumbles during the consistency of its comedically dependent moments, a fact made worst by its undeterred persistence towards such, but also strangely bewildering character traits deposited to Anna’s characterization that makes her a difficult sell among blue collar workers who see the film. During our initial introduction to the character, she comes across as this materialistically spoiled adult child who lives off of the advantages of friends in high places, and considering the movie’s entire plot involving her living in this house that isn’t hers, and sneaking her way into a family that she didn’t earn, is presented as sweetly endearing almost manipulatively, I never found myself fully invested or even accidentally enamored with her character’s journey, in turn underselling the emotionality of this engagement, which already finds itself fighting uphill against a romance that fails to conjure even the slightest bit of conductive chemistry to the benefit of those involved. As previously assessed, I don’t exactly blame Bailey and Page for this unforeseen deterrence, as they’re giving their all to the integrity of this film, but nothing about the tenderness and tantalizing tension of their masking interactions palpably emits this earth-shattering irresistibility that either of them have for the other, with so many of these long-winded visuals in the corresponding stares lacking a palpable synergy that the audience yearns to invest in, and considering the script’s third act shifts this undercooked romance-driven narrative into a full fledged family drama, it underscores the stakes and sentiment of those involved by casually shifting away from it, inspiring the script to evoke more of the conveniences and contrivances to abruptly resolve matters, in ways that are surprising or unforeseen to absolutely nobody. While the movie’s romance certainly might fail to earn the kind of undivided emotionality that drives this very plot, the meandering from the anything-but-subtle music tones from John Debney spoon feed them in ways that inscribe a jarring underlining to the honesty and interpretability of what’s transpiring, without anything even closely resembling nuance for the ways these tones continuously pull on such one-dimensional outpourings. It’s bad enough that the soundtrack and its mixing obnoxiously panders an audience with an incessant need for downloads, particularly in its triple channeling of Mario’s Let Me Love You, but it’s so much worse with the distractingly unavoidable heaviness that Debney stitches to scenes requiring undivided focus, oversaturating these moments of honesty between characters in ways that are the emotional equivalent to someone yelling for directions to the bathroom during the quiet reflection of a funeral, in which Debney has so very little confidence in his audience’s interpretive skills that he spoon-feeds them all of the ways that they should feel, without the need to invest to a single scene throughout. Being that this is a romantic comedy, there’s also ample opportunity for an abundance of comedic relief in the supporting characters to lend their talents to the constructive outlining of the engagement, with these highly insensitive cultural depictions that made me uncomfortable in the exaggerated theatrics of black and Italian characters alike. To be fair, the Italian characters are at least given the sweetly sincere moments that drive the tenderness of the movie’s family dynamic, even when their accentual tendencies seem to play off of every Super Mario Bros. impression that you’ve ever heard, but there’s no mistaken how loudly abrasive and unapologetically crude these black characters are framed, who essentially only serve a need to comment their commentary to how sexy a guy is, or how messed up a situation is, and considering the comedy suffers tremendously as a result of repetitive stereotyping, it left me constantly groaning in annoyance for how shamelessly over-the-top it all felt, even if the nobility of the intention was to appraise humility to the humbling of its leading characters caught in the crossfire.

OVERALL
You, Me & Tuscany is a clunkily uninspiring and sacrificially shallow romantic comedy that lives and dies on the back of superior films before it, particularly the abundance of familiar tropes and routine conveniences that leave it stranded in its search of a soul of its own to evade such unrelenting predictability. While the movie will inevitably touch genre enthusiasts in the hearts and tummies, as a result of the affectionately gentle family dynamic and limitless dishes of deliciously tantalizing Italian food, the romance factor at this movie’s forefront fails to ignite the flame, as a result of the lack of palpable chemistry and attainable passion between Halle Bailey and Rege-Jean Page, and like the dire dynamic of its leads, the film gives us plenty of jaw-dropping imagery, without anything substantially stimulating between the ears to transcend expectations.

My Grade: 5.1 or D+