Netflix rom-com ‘You People’ can’t answer its hard questions


The day after Kyrie Irving had his infamous press conference, my best and longest friend sent me a message. He, a Jewish man, was genuinely confused about the vitriol coming from the Black community. 

“It’s not me, but it’s not new either. It’s not new at all,” I replied. Although my friend has always been engaged with Black culture, from playing basketball on a predominantly Black college team to loving West Coast rap, he was shocked to learn that Black people might actually resent him for it.

Netflix’s new film, “You People,” has this exact conversation earnestly. Its major flaw? It, like most of us, has no idea how to resolve the deep seeded racial issues it wants us to address. 

Jonah Hill as Ezra and Eddie Murphy as Akbar in “You People.”

Tyler Adams/Netflix

At first glance, “You People” appears to be a straightforward romantic comedy. Jonah Hill (who also wrote the film) plays a finance bro with a podcast side hustle about “the culture,” casually bouncing around topics like Barack Obama and Black Lives Matter with his Black co-host. Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays his overbearing Jewish mother. Hill, who compares his romantic desperation to “Views”-era Drake, has a meet-cute with Lauren London in which he mistakes her for his Uber driver. He dodges her accusations of racism, lands a date and they begin the “we’re just from two different worlds” romantic trope that has been done infinite times in films like “Jungle Fever” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” When getting ready to propose, Hill meets Eddie Murphy’s character, a militant Muslim father who is not happy about the idea of a white son-in-law.

What sets “You People” apart is that the love story is truly centered around just that — love. I mean the tiny, seemingly insignificant aspects of their love are front and center, like the way London tells Hill that they “go together now,” and he smiles back. Or the way they both look at a painting in a gallery with the same wonder in their eyes. It’s subtle but real. The chemistry between Hill and London is so palpable that at one point I caught myself not breathing, and I’m unsure how long I had been holding my breath.

Eddie Murphy as Akbar, Lauren London as Amira and Travis Bennett as Omar in "You People."

Eddie Murphy as Akbar, Lauren London as Amira and Travis Bennett as Omar in “You People.”

Parrish Lewis/Netflix

The couple bonds over what Hill perceives as their shared culture. Hill isn’t interested in the Jewish aspects of his identity; for him, “the culture” — which is to say Black culture — is everything. It’s where he and London connect. They wear matching sneakers and sleep in Gucci T-Shirts. He even literally calls her his “boo.” It sets the film up as not just a love story between Hill and London, but between those characters and “the culture” itself.

Once the idea of culture is set up, the movie then asks who creates it. Who has access to it? Who is allowed to live fully within it?  

If both my friend and Jonah Hill are both raised in stereotypically Jewish households, can they ever be more than tourists when it comes to “the culture”? And can they truly love a person who represents it? That’s where we get to the crux of the film, when at Hill and London’s wedding their clashing families force them to answer these questions out loud — and their relationship falls apart as a result.

Writer-producer Jonah Hill, left, as Ezra and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Shelley in "You People." 

Writer-producer Jonah Hill, left, as Ezra and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Shelley in “You People.” 

Parrish Lewis/Netflix © 2023

But that’s also what’s maddening about the film. It asks all these questions and it does nothing to answer them. Hill’s mother, played by Louis-Dreyfus, constantly says racially insensitive things, and can’t help but want to touch London’s hair. Murphy speaks to his relationship with Louis Farrakhan and doesn’t trust white people. These interactions are set up as awkward, but never as wrong. And by avoiding the idea of resolution, the topics just hang in the air.



What’s weird, though, is that maybe it doesn’t matter that the film doesn’t wrap up the discussion. Maybe it can’t. Toward the end, Hill delivers a monologue on his podcast essentially giving up on even trying. 

“We really do live in two worlds. There’s no escaping it. I was raised by hip-hop s—t, it’s made me who I am. But with that, I still wasn’t prepared for the realities of a world I’m just not from. I’ll always be an outsider. … If you love something, I think it’s best you keep it for yourself.”

From left, David Duchovny as Arnold, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Shelley, Jonah Hill as Ezra, Lauren London as Amira, Eddie Murphy as Akbar and Nia Long as Fatima in "You People." 

From left, David Duchovny as Arnold, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Shelley, Jonah Hill as Ezra, Lauren London as Amira, Eddie Murphy as Akbar and Nia Long as Fatima in “You People.” 

Parrish Lewis/Netflix © 2023

The line fully encapsulates the sentiment of the entire movie. Not only does it suggest that the best solution is disconnection, without solution, it’s the last actual lesson of the film. To find solutions to some of our toughest racial challenges, the level of unpacking and hurt might fully take this movie from the comedy genre into the drama category and then maybe no one would watch it. It would have to ask: If someone can love a person who is culturally different, why can’t someone love that culture just as wholly? I’m unsure it could, but when a movie is so daring early, I get hope that it will have the courage to finish as confidently. 

In the end, “You People” doesn’t do that. The moviegoer will leave feeling relatable on the topics, but not at all moved forward. In the world that “You People” creates, that’s a wasted opportunity. In the end, Louis-Dreyfus and Murphy just have a sudden change of heart offscreen and convince their kids to get back together. It’s lazy, just another happy ending to an Eddie Murphy comedy. I suppose that the first two acts are so good that I started expecting “American History X.” But it isn’t that — because it doesn’t want to be.





Source link

Denial of responsibility! galaxyconcerns is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.

Leave A Reply

Your email address will not be published.