You, Me & Tuscany
Directed by Will Packer
Halle Bailey, Rege-Jean Page
“A romantic comedy so aggressively harmless it could be prescribed for anxiety. Halle Bailey is genuinely charming, the cinematography makes Tuscany look like a screensaver for 98 minutes, and the plot shows up fifteen minutes late with a contractually obligated airport chase. Perfectly fine. Which is the problem.”
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The Review
You, Me and Tuscany is a Will Packer joint that wants to be Girls Trip minus the friends, plus Italy. Halle Bailey plays Anna, a former aspiring chef whose entire life falls apart in the first eight minutes. Rege-Jean Page plays Matteo, a 'charming Italian' with a conveniently empty villa and the exact vocabulary of someone whose character was typed directly into a pitch document. They meet cute, stay awkward, fall in love on a schedule you could set a watch by.
The cinematography is genuinely gorgeous. Director of photography clearly got handed a tourism board cheque and told to earn it. Every vineyard is golden, every piazza is lit like a perfume commercial, every meal takes six minutes to film and is eaten by two people who are absolutely not hungry. If you watch this on a flight you will immediately want to book Italy, which is probably the entire point.
The comedy is the problem. The script is afraid of being funny because being funny risks being edgy and being edgy risks alienating the demographic Will Packer has spent the last decade monetising. What you get instead is a 98 minute streaming product that is technically a romcom the way a protein bar is technically a meal.
What It Nails
- +Halle Bailey is doing actual work here. She sells the emotional beats even when the script is phoning them in.
- +The Tuscany location filming is absurdly pretty. Worth it for the B-roll alone.
- +Pacing is actually tight for the genre. 98 minutes, no filler, in and out.
- +The supporting cast of Italian locals is charming in a way that makes you wish the movie was actually about them.
What It Botches
- -The chemistry between the leads is professional, not electric. They like each other. They do not need each other.
- -The script treats Italy like a mood board instead of a culture. Matteo exists to be handsome and Italian, in that order.
- -Every comedic beat is pulled from a 2014 romcom starter pack. There is an airport scene. Of course there is.
- -The food porn is lazy. You cannot make a movie about Tuscany and not let us watch someone actually cook for longer than ten seconds.
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Who It's For
Anyone who wants a movie they can half-watch on a flight while eating microwave pasta. People who think Mamma Mia was too complicated. Anyone who has recently been dumped and needs 98 minutes of soft focus closure without the risk of accidentally feeling something new.
Who Should Skip
Anyone who has seen Eat Pray Love and wanted more Eat, less Pray, less Love. Anyone who expects a romantic comedy to actually be either of those things. Italian people who are sensitive about Americans treating their country like a backdrop.
Marketing Roast
The trailer promised 'the romantic escape of the year' over a montage of wine glasses and meaningful looks. It delivered wine glasses. The looks were there. The romance is more of a suggestion.
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