I Went to See "You, Me and Tuscany"

A film for which The Hollywood Reporter writes; "the location did half the work”

Spoilers ahead.

I’m moving soon, so I’m on a mission to do as many things with friends as I can while I’m in Toronto. And what better way to spend a Sunday than at a movie with friends?

So I messaged my friend Sam and off we went to see You, Me, and Tuscany, a new rom-com starring Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page.

I’ll be honest, I’m not really a huge rom-com fan. But this was a rare time that a mainstream film of the genre would star two Black leads, so I had to support.

The film is about a 20-something woman from NYC, Anna, who quit culinary school when her mom died. She does not have her life together whatsoever and counts on her pregnant best friend to bail her out of problems. In one scene, she gets chased out of a housesitting gig because she was wearing the owner’s clothes, then goes to her friend’s job at a hotel and asks her to sneak her into a room so she has somewhere to stay for the night. The friend, heavily pregnant and not in a position to lose a job, says no and then sends her to sit at the hotel’s bar.

While she is there, she means Mateo, a beautiful man from Tuscany. He tells her he left Italy for NYC a year ago because he fought with his dad. No doubt, this will be the emotional trauma that he never gets over, and every woman he dates is going to have to deal with. He also tells her that he has a villa there that is sitting empty. Coincidentally, Anna’s mom had bought plane tickets to Tuscany for her and her daughter, which aren’t refundable (even in death, apparently), so Anna goes to Tuscany.

Taking a page from every Hallmark movie, this plot centres on a massive annual festival that will make or break local businesses if it doesn’t go right. Of course, this festival books up all the local hotels. And, since this is apparently Anna’s first week on earth, she hasn’t thought to book anything and now has nowhere to go. So she breaks into Mateo’s home. As they say, “If there are no Airbnbs available, then turn what’s available into an Airbnb”.

Of course, the next day, the guy’s mom and nonna come to clean the house. Which does not make sense, because the home has been vacant for a year, so what is there to clean?

Anyway, Anna lies and says she is engaged to Mateo, and his family does not question anything and embraces her. She then falls in love with Mateo’s cousin (the Duke of Hastings himself), saves the family’s restaurant by cooking during the great big festival, and blah blah she ends up with Regé-Jean Page.

For what it is, I liked the movie. I find the character of Anna annoying- I can’t stand people who cause problems and leave it for others to deal with. So I found her unsympathetic and was not invested in her finding happiness, to be honest. The stars of the film are actually Mateo’s family; the sister is hilarious, and the mom is whose happy ending I wanted to see more than Anna’s.

Also, if I can be cynical for a minute, this is not a relationship that’s going to last. Even if we can get past the long-distance relationship thing. She’s homeless, and at the start of the trip, she had only $500, which she has been steadily spending throughout the film. Why would someone who owns hundreds of acres of vineyards and a winery settle for someone with a three-figure net worth? Also, Anna and Mateo almost had sex at the beginning of the movie, and I have not forgotten about that. What in the Randy and Jermaine Jackson is going to happen with that?

The Hollywood Reporter titled their review of the film as “For ‘You, Me & Tuscany,’ the Location Did Half the Work”, which I thought was hilarious. The film will definitely do wonders for Italian tourism - the scenery was amazing, and now everyone else who’s seen this movie wants to go, myself included.

Also, I just need to get this off my chest, but whoever did Regé-Jean Page’s makeup needs to quit their job asap and find something else. It was so bad for the first third of the film that I could not focus on anything else.

All in all, not bad. If you go in expecting a cheesy rom-com, you will enjoy it. Anything else, well, you’re playing yourself.