You, Me, and Tuscany: Move to Tuscany + Make Pasta = Profit???
I was genuinely shocked the first time I saw the preview for You, Me, and Tuscany. Not because the setting seemed particularly ground-breaking (I've covered multiple Italy-set rom-coms on this very blog) or the premise was especially wild (It's basically While You Were Sleeping without the comatose fake fiancé). No, I was shocked that this very basic rom-com starring B-list stars was actually getting a theatrical release. No shade to anyone involved, but everything about this screams "streaming movie." Since I feel personally obligated to support rom-coms in theaters, and I have an AMC A-List pass, I took myself on a movie date to see this last Friday.
Anna (Halle Bailey) is broke and broken-hearted after the death of her mother. She's cobbling together dog-sitting gigs to keep herself afloat when she meets Matteo (Lorenzo De Moor), a rich Italian real estate mogul who owns a dream house in Tuscany but can't go home because of family pressure. Anna has a plane ticket to Italy (that is seemingly good on any airline and at any ticket price, don't worry about it), so she takes off to Tuscany and, um, breaks into Matteo's house and uses all his stuff.
When his family discovers her there the next day, she panics and says that she and Matteo are engaged. The whole family welcomes Anna with open arms except for Matteo's adopted brother, Michael (Rege-Jean Page). When he's roped into showing Anna around the family vineyard, the chemistry between them is undeniable, but Anna can't come clean about her lies without losing the life she's always dreamed of having.
And, you know, I get it. I also would like to be on a luxury vacation in Tuscany where the only thing I have to worry about is what cute outfit to wear next. Still, I found Anna's character baffling. In the opening sequence of the movie, she's seen walking the streets of NYC in a designer outfit, only to reveal that she's been raiding the closet in the upscale apartment where she is dog-sitting. Later, she acts entitled to Matteo's house because he told her it exists. No one in the movie seems particularly bothered that she's a thief and a liar, including Anna herself.
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The rest of the cast is equally thinly sketched and implausible. There's a rideshare driver who waits around all day to help Anna is her various endeavors whose Italian accent is so broad it might as well be dripping with spaghetti. Anna's soon-to-be sister-in-law is busty and horny, which automatically made her my favorite character. Rege-Jean Page is a capable romantic hero, but he's got basically nothing to work with besides "you hate your brother" and "you love wine and Halle Bailey."
When I say that You, Me, and Tuscany screams "streaming movie," I mean that there's nothing much about it that separates it from a Hallmark movie. There's no high concept, there's no true movie stars, there's no surprises in the plot, and montages stand in for actual chemistry. To be clear, I LOVE Hallmark movies, as well as Netflix's somewhat-flashier stable of streaming rom-coms. If this movie were streaming, I might be more generous about the absurd plot and flat acting. But if you're gonna trap me in a dark theater for two hours and expect me not to look at my phone, I want something with a bit more juice.
But here's the thing: when the lights came up in the theater, I realized that there were at least fifteen other women attending this Friday afternoon show two weeks after the movie was released. There were mothers and daughters, friends, and solo romance aficionados curled up buckets of popcorn. I don't know why this revelation never seems to stick, but WOMEN LIKE MOVIES TOO. If Jason Statham can release four action movies every year where he kicks ass for thinly-sketched plot reasons, then there can be at least four theatrical rom-coms every year where pretty people say nice things to each other in beautiful places. Give me more of these, please and thank you.
What did you think of You, Me, and Tuscany? Let me know!