A romcom that tenderizes the cliches.
“You, Me & Tuscany” is the latest romcom with a “While You Were Sleeping” quality as the main heroine finds herself in the wrong position and ends up being right where she needs to be. She ends up lying to a family about marrying a son, and they manage to warm up to her, while she falls for another man.
It’s set in Italy and has some delicious meals to prepare, and it should be a cute and tasty movie in that notion. Even though it’s humor is mostly in the “AWWKWAAARRD” aspect, it still has some likable leads like Halle Bailey and Rege-Jean Page.
Bailey plays Anna, a recently fired house sitter would-be cook, who dreams of opening up a restaurant, but for now is a jobless and homeless squatter. One day while charging her phone at a hotel bar, she encounters a handsome Italian man named Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor), who offers to let her sleep in his room for the night. He also admits to her that he has a villa in Tuscany, which he barely uses. So, using whatever money she has left, the ticket her deceased mother left her, and no common sense to book a hotel room, she travels to Tuscany. But because of an annual event that has booked all the best rooms in town, she decides to break into Matteo’s home.
When she discovers his engagement ring in a drawer, she puts it on. And when his mother and grandmother come to the house and call the police on her, they see the ring on her finger and conclude she is marrying Matteo. So, she goes along with it, and before she can even escape, they have all the arrangements set up. They even have Michael (Page), his cousin and adoptive brother from England, set up the wedding on his family’s vineyard, as well as become a romantic interest for Anna.
As they meet, he starts off taking the sandwich she was going to buy and her criticizing him. But the more she gets to know him, well, you know the concept.
The trailers promise us that Matteo will come back to his villa with Anna asking: “What are you doing here?” and him responding: “What am I doing here? What are you doing here?” But that’s not the rising action part, as he is the estranged family member who finally sees his family happy and continues with the lie.
And when we do get to the truth reveal, there’s sadness, and then happiness. It’s almost like one of those commercials that act like commercial romcoms in a sense. Maybe that’s part of the breeziness.
“You, Me & Tuscany” was directed by Kat Coiro, who also made the mediocre “Marry Me,” which I felt was in the “Roman Holiday” and “Notting Hill” tradition. As I mentioned this one wants to go for that “While You Were Sleeping” angle. So I guess this filmmaker must be nostalgic in a sense.
Anna keeps saying she can’t cook anymore ever since her mother passed away, but Matteo’s family keeps telling her she still can, and she tries and tries until she finds her magic again. The food in this movie looks delicious. I don’t know who the caterer is, but he or she sure has good taste. And that’s what I expect in Italian cuisine.
Bailey has proven her movie acting abilities by starring in “The Little Mermaid” and “The Color Purple” remakes, and here, she seems to be desperately trying to channel on Sandra Bullock or Meg Ryan. And Page, who has shown his deadpan sense of humor in “Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” and shown his style in “Black Bag,” has a certain kind of charm that continues to make him such a likable actor.
I didn’t go for its choice of comedy, but I did go for the cooking and sweetness “You, Me & Tuscany” presents. Sometimes, it’s spicy, sometimes, it’s a little too sweet, and sometimes, it knows which secret to use: salt or pepper. You decide.