YOU, ME & TUSCANY Review

The new rom-com You, Me & Tuscany from director Kat Coiro kicks off with Anna (Halle Bailey), a young woman struggling financially as she meets Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor), a traveling real estate agent as he's visiting New York where she currently lives. When Matteo finds out Anna was once planning to visit Tuscany, the city he happens to be from, he encourages her to go there and tells her about the villa he left behind.

When Anna arrives in Tuscany and realizes she has nowhere to stay, she breaks into the vacant villa Matteo told her about. His family finds her there and comes to the conclusion that she is engaged to Matteo, due in part to her wearing the engagement ring she found in his drawers. She goes along with this, fearing she will get in trouble if she tells them the truth. Things become more complicated, however, when she starts catching feelings for Matteo's cousin turned adopted brother, Michael (Regé-Jean Page).

A film like this relies so much on the audience's investment in the lead, and that's exactly where this movie shines. Halle Bailey is a true natural on screen. Despite her lying throughout the entire movie, her charm and likeability make it easy to empathize with her. I was rooting for her to find a way out of a situation all the way through, despite putting herself in it.

There are a lot of fun side characters as well. Isabella Ferrari, Stella Pecollo, and Marco Calvani all steal the scenes they're in through likeable side roles. Not all of them land, and a couple of them are overly stereotypical like the ex-fiancée character, but the group overall makes for a fun ensemble.

The overall set up works fine enough. Most of what is happening being based on a lie becomes a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, it makes things entertaining and builds anticipation for what will happen when all is revealed. On the other hand, it makes the buildup between Anna and Michael feel stunted and not as easy to root for as it's not all completely honest. However, some of that is made up for in the raw moments they are able to have throughout that, like when they share stories of how experiencing loved ones dying changed them.

The movie does lose itself a bit in the final few scenes. There's a sense that it doesn't know how to both wrap up everything we've seen at that point while also naturally reaching the conclusion it wants to reach. It makes it all a bit hard to buy, but I understand why it wraps up that way.

It also struggles from a filmmaking perspective along the way. Some moments of overly obvious ADR work, for example, took me out of one of the few key scenes that really builds up the dynamic between our two leads.

Overall, however, this movie put a smile on my face, and that's more important than anything for a movie like this. It's not reinventing the genre or even trying to be one of the best movies of the year, but it's one that most romcom fans will be satisfied with. That's enough to leave me feeling more positive than negative and to tell people to give it a shot.

🍿SCORE = 62 / 100