Set in present-day Los Angeles, Jonah Hill and Kenya Barris‘s You People is a fuck-all racial culture-clash comedy (Jews vs. blacks) that isn’t half bad. In fact it’s darkly, brilliantly funny during the first 25% (I was actually laughing out loud and I never do that), and…okay, slightly less funny but still clever and diverting during the middle section, or roughly 60% of the running time.
The only part that massively sucks is a truly astonishing copout happy ending that occupies the last 12 to 15 minutes, give or take. If you can ignore this huge miscalculation You People doesn’t deserve the mostly shitty reviews — it really doesn’t. 85% to 90% of this well-produced film is not a burn
It’s been described as a 2023 riff on Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, but it’s a lot nervier and crazy-good than anything Stanley Kramer ever had in mind.
Hill is note perfect as a bearded, chunky, vaguely depressed 35 year-old fellow of the Hebrew persuasion; ditto Laurene London as the Muslim-raised cappuccino girl he falls in love with and wants to marry. (And vice versa.) Hill’s trying-way-too-hard-to-be-hip parents are broadly played by David Duchovny and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Eddie Murphy (best of show after Hill) and Nia Long play London’s Baldwin Hills parents. All the major supporting performers are spot-on, especially Sam Jay, Travis Bennett, Deon Cole and Mike Epps.
