You People review
In the best case scenario, You People would make for the most painfully unfunny skit for the season on Saturday Night Live — just dragged out throughout two excruciating hours.
This is the kind of movie that makes me wonder how often the cast wondered in between takes why they agreed to sign up for this film. Beyond what I can only hope was a ridiculous huge payday.
In better, more talented hands that could actually make this modern twist on Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner work You People could have been a clever, thoughtful and funny film. That’s absolutely not the case with these filmmakers.
Director/co-screenwriter Kenya Barris (#BlackAF, Coming 2 America) has been in a slump so long it’s feeling more like Black-ish was the fluke and not his norm.
Partnering with Jonah Hill (Don’t Look Up), who co-wrote the film, doesn’t help Barris snap his cold streak.
Ezra (Hill) has a job that doesn’t thrill him — he’s got bigger goals of diving in full time to his culture-focused podcast with his BFF Mo (Sam Jay). In the opposite of a meet cute, he hops into Amira’s (Lauren London, Without Remorse) car assuming she’s his ride share driver.
Hill plays the 13th variant of the awkward Jonah Hill character he’s played in basically all his roles. It’s the kind of performance that Hill leans in as a crutch and this wasn’t the role for his quirky default oddball character.
Barris and Hill struggle with the most crucial element of the film — attempting to explain why Amira and Ezra are together in the first place.
It seems like they’re aware of it as the courtship is mostly told through montages to avoid dealing with how they connect over issues that would matter to a Jewish dude and a black woman. Maybe this would be helped if London and Hill had any discernible chemistry?
By the half-hour mark Barris and Hill have swung and badly missed on way too many cringeworthy “jokes” on slavery, the Holocaust and cocaine-fueled gay Obama. It’s supposed to be edgy humor, but it just reeks of desperately trying too hard and coming off lame.
Eventually, Ezra decides he’s ready to take the next step and wants to propose. That means involving the last people he wants in the mix of his relationship — his family.
His father, Arnold (David Duchovny), has a one note joke about being an Xzbit fan while his sister, Liza (Molly Gordon), is a lesbian apparently to fit a quota as her sexuality is mentioned once and never meaningful beyond her initial attraction to Amira.
But the main cause for worry for Ezra is his well-meaning, but cluelessly offensive mother, Beth (Julia Louis Dreyfus, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever). Beth views herself as contemporary and hip. She’s enamored with the idea of having a black daughter-in-law to the point of trying way too hard to prove she’s “down.”
That’s hardly the case with Amira’s parents, Akbar (Eddie Murphy, Coming 2 America) and Fatima (Nia Long, The Best Man: The Final Chapters). Well specifically, Akbar, who’s a devout Muslim and was a great admirer of Louis Farrakhan.
Like Duchovny, Long doesn’t really have much to do beyond co-signing with Murthy’s character. It’s a thankless role for both of them.
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It felt like one of the admittedly numerous mistakes Barris and Hill made was keeping the focus on Ezra and Amira. This wasn’t a case where most of the audience was watching this film for Hill and London.
Perhaps recognizing that weakness, Barris calls in some favors with some of his regular collaborators (Anthony Anderson, Deon Cole, Mike Epps and Kym Whitley) for quick cameos in addition to giving himself a little on-screen time too.
The avenue ripe for better comedy was shifting to Akbar’s efforts to undermine Ezra while Beth naively tries to repair race relations in a matter of weeks.
Dreyfus is game for whatever, bringing an energy to Beth that keeps her unpredictable and entertaining.
For too much of the film, Barris has Murphy play Akbar too restrained and uptight. It’s a poor use of Murphy, who’s best utilized showcasing his larger than life charisma. That can only work for so long before Eddie Murphy emerges to liven Akbar up.
Barris continues to shoot his movies like TV shows with weird, distracting transitions and pauses between scenes that come off like natural commercial breaks.
Somehow, Barris stretches the film out to just about two hours. It’s almost impressive that he thought this story needed that long to be told so poorly.
There are enough randomly scattered elements that a savvier filmmaker could have made You People click. The only thing You People proved is that Barris isn’t that skilled a director anymore.
Rating; 2 out of 10
Photo Credit: Netflix