A culture shock comedy that briefly flirts with being a rom-com, TV mogul Kenya Barris' feature directorial debut You People is well above the usual Netflix fare. But just fair. After a rather charming opening act in which Jonah Hill's laid-back podcaster Ezra and Lauren London's aspiring hairstylist Amira cross paths and embark on a genuinely involving love story, You People struggles to find their identity before to settle in the safest corner you can find: the quackery of Hollywood.
The communities they come from can always be at each other's necks; their women may clash with other women and men with other men, but everyone is likely to agree on one thing, says You People; that movies are considerably better with happy endings. At least, that's the audience Barris is targeting with his first film.
Director: Kenya Barris
Writers: Jonah Hill, Kenya Barris
Stars: Jonah Hill, Lauren London, Eddie Murphy
Along with Hill, he crafted a script that, for at least 45 minutes, brings back memories of Judd Apatow's heyday in the best way. The dialogue is witty, the back and forth has the spontaneity that can only be achieved by talented improvisers, and even the most general comedic scenes convey crucial information about the characters.
Consider Ezra and Amira's cute meeting on a hot Los Angeles morning. He absentmindedly gets into his parked car because he mistook it for his Uber, and she, quite understandably, nearly hits him. Ezra tries to tell Amira that both her and her car match the description of her trip on the app, but she doesn't agree. She accuses him of racism, given her inability to tell her apart from the black driver on her Uber app, but this affects him. Extremely mortified and profusely remorseful, Ezra, in an act of good faith, offers to help her with directions to wherever he wants her to go. They hit it off on the road, and before we know her, he has asked her out on a proper date.
As a genre, it's well known that comedy doesn't travel. That's why the biggest hits are often the ones that strike a universal chord. A searing examination of race relations in contemporary America may be hard for most audiences to swallow, but an observational comedy about idiosyncratic families is immensely relatable.
And this is the angle Barris leans into as Amira and Ezra take their relationship to the next level, and the movie enters its second act. An unusually muted Eddie Murphy enters the picture as Amira's devout Muslim father, Akbar. He instantly distrusts Ezra, who seems to be in active rebellion against his Jewish heritage; Hill has kept his bleached blonde hair and tattoos of him. “Do you hang out in the neighborhood all the time or do you only come here for our food and women? Murphy is deadpan in one scene, as he rebuffs Ezra's efforts to woo him.
Ezra himself appears to be in conflict with his parents, particularly his mother Shelley, played by Julia Louis Dreyfus. In his first meeting with Amira, he overcommits to the progressive identity that has been cured and begins to talk about Magic Johnson, Black Lives Matter, and his hatred for Gone with the Wind (before criticizing that he considered himself socially responsible). ). do). It's a sign of virtue, but in a cute way. Not like Bradley Whitford in Get Out.
But the two families' attempts to unite over shared oppression only end up highlighting their differences and shaming their children. Akbar, for example, can't stop talking about his grandmother who used to pick cotton, and Ezra's father, played by David Duchovny, seems intent on directing all conversations towards rapper Xzibit. Shelley, on the other hand, can't help but feel outraged on Amira's behalf.
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"She's like a jerk, but she means well," Ezra says of her mother, as Amira's patience begins to wear thin. She's tired of being treated like a new toy; she symbolically proves the awakening of her future mother-in-law. She wants to be treated as a person first and as a black woman second. Ezra is also deeply irritated by Akbar's unwillingness to accept him for who he is; a 'white boy' who loves his daughter.
Amira and Ezra's families mean no harm, and unlike Shelley, Akbar isn't at all concerned with being politically correct. But despite the younger generation's attempts to build bridges and allow love to conquer all, the cultural and racial baggage between the two communities, the film suggests, makes it all but impossible for two people of different origins.
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