You People

It is one tiny rewrite away from a broad “Naked Gun”-esque parody of comedies that traffic in racial stereotypes and differences. Honestly, most of those ...

The tragic thing about “You People” is that it’s a good idea with a great cast. Late in the film, Amira claims that Shelley sees her like a new toy, and I wish the film had the guts to explore that idea more—how people like Shelley can be fascinated by Black culture but not in a way that ever seeks to understand it. Hill and Barris are constantly throwing in these interesting ideas and skipping away from them to the easy, unfunny joke. Admittedly, the angle here is interesting regarding social commentary in that Shelley plays one of those women who sees Black culture in purely superficial terms. Cut to six months later, when Ezra has decided to marry Amira and so steels himself to ask permission from her parents Akbar ( [Eddie Murphy](/cast-and-crew/eddie-murphy)) and Fatima ( [Nia Long](/cast-and-crew/nia-long)). It’s as if they never listened to any podcasts with racial themes, overwriting the scenes with awkward dialogue that sounds so scripted (when the whole idea is that these podcasts are casual, off-the-cuff conversations).

"You People" relies on cringe-inducing moments as the crux of its comedy, as a Jewish guy and a Black Muslim woman (neither of them particularly observant) ...

Ultimately, though, the performances feel mostly squandered as “You People” yields less than the sum of its parts, not helped by unconvincing plot conveniences down the stretch. Virginia” decision](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/03/us/interracial-marriage-blake-cec/index.html) and the release of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” – or settle for broad sitcom-style gags. That tension was also evident in Barris’ previous series for Netflix, [“#blackAF,”](https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/entertainment/blackaf-review/index.html) in which he also starred. There are also pointed observations about race relations even among those who want to be viewed as progressive, such as Shelley treating her future daughter-in-law like a fashionable accessory to be shown off. Yet the story unfolds in fits and starts, jumping forward to get to the most fertile comedic territory while montage-ing its way through the central relationship after its meet-cute origins. A topnotch cast – down to the tiny cameos – can’t fully redeem material that gets lost somewhere between satire and sitcom as assembled by star Jonah Hill and director Kenya Barris.

Even with an indecisive vision, comedy royalty (Jonah Hill! Eddie Murphy! Julia Louis-Dreyfus!) eke out a laugh or two in Kenya Barris's film.

And even with all of the timely jokes about vaccines and Kanye West, the film only manages to rehash old arguments and then throw them away for a sense of family it hasn’t earned — a shoehorned solution that makes the film feel less like a modern take and more like the same old race movie with a new pair of Air Jordans. [Eddie Murphy](https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/eddie-murphy-speaks-the-rolling-stone-interview-111885/) lands plenty of lines that soften the antagonistic aspects of his character, and [Julia Louis-Dreyfus](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/julia-louis-dreyfus-on-post-election-veep-and-why-we-still-love-elaine-benes-194422/) practically steals the entire damn thing as Ezra’s well-intentioned and overbearing Jewish mother Shelley Cohen. Any chemistry the two have in scenes, and there is some chemistry, often wanes under the collective incompatibility of their families. When Ezra accidentally mistakes Amira Mohammed’s ( [Lauren London](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/lauren-london/)) car for his ride share, the two set upon a whirlwind romance full of differences that threaten to tear their relationship apart. The central meet-cute is playful and awkward in a way that veers closer to endearing than cringe-worthy. [You People](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/netlfix-kenya-barris-you-people-trailer-1234641450/), the feature directorial debut of [Kenya Barris](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/kenya-barris/) (black-ish), is the next great romantic comedy.

Even with a fantastic comedic cast, You People feels more like a series of sketches than an actual film.

But instead, You People is a missed opportunity, a half-assed reinterpretation that is only sporadically funny, and without the heart or the substance that this story would need for it to truly work. At times, it really feels like You People is just Barris throwing out all the scenarios one should expect in this type of film, never quite worrying about how long or how short of a time he spends in these moments, but instead, just focusing on spending any time in them. As it stands, You People is like an amalgamation of sketches with unusual timing, thrown together in an attempt to have some semblance of a coherent narrative. Yet You People lacks any of the insight or cleverness that made black-ish such a gem, instead feeling like a stitched-together collection of scenarios without much in the way of heart or humor. This begins the awkward clashing of worlds between the Cohen and Mohammed family, as Akbar doesn’t think Ezra is good enough for his daughter, while Ezra’s parents Shelley (Louis-Dreyfus) and Arnold (Duchovny) don’t know how to act now that their family is about to become more diverse. For eight seasons, Barris’s show was able to tackle difficult topics like police brutality, the 2016 presidential election, and racism within the span of a little over twenty minutes delicately and with insight.

There is no problem for Julia Dreyfus' Miss Shelley or Eddie Murphy's Akbar in casually letting out a racial slur or an offensive remark about Black or Jewish ...

The finely tuned cultural sensibilities of You People give it flavour, personality, and a much-desired vibrance but the handling of the themes and substance make the overall experience tedious and unsatisfactory. It is not cutting edge and slumbers under the burden of obviousness. There is no ambition to extrapolate the situation of the characters to the larger picture of American society, which as a viewer would have made for a fascinating discussion. It is not a slight on the quality of writing, which is fantastic in individual sequences. There is so much nitpicking and deliberation on the jokes that it makes people fearful of what they say. What makes You People special – its sense of finely tuned cultural nuance – is also what makes it tedious.

From Black-ish creator Kenya Barris, Netflix's Eddie Murphy/Jonah Hill team-up is a dispiriting and dull use of tremendous comedic talent that includes Veep ...

All of this is a shame, because even if the movie is barely directed, it is stacked with comedic legends, some of whom can actually get good laughs out of Hill’s signature mumblecore bullshitting. In this mode, You People comes across as both insincere as a whole, and disingenuous when it comes to Ezra’s character. It’s fun when the actor is a supporting character, less so when he’s one of the protagonists. There can be catharsis in making fun of this in conversation or art, and it can even be a channel for growth and moving past said difficulties — which is where the appeal of a movie like Regardless of how well-meaning a person can be, any challenge to their baseline assumptions about life and the world is going to be uncomfortable and disorienting, and missteps will be made. In a beat that feels fairly true to life, neither of them fully anticipates how weird their respective families will be about their relationship.

(JTA) – The new Netflix comedy “You People,” about an uneasy union between a Jewish man and a Black woman in Los Angeles, was always aiming to provoke its ...

[Louis Farrakhan](https://www.jta.org/2018/03/02/united-states/louis-farrakhan-anti-semite-still-relevant), whose antisemitism gets a small acknowledgement, although the wedding at the end of the film is jointly officiated by a cantor and an imam meant to represent the Nation of Islam. As a Jew himself, he said it was also important to him that the film’s depiction of Judaism be “authentic.” “It was important, I think, for us to have that song remain, so that it portrayed the divide that they would have to cross,” Misher said. Detailed discussions of antisemitism, the filmmakers believed, would have distracted from that. But Misher told JTA that he thought the film did an admirable job of portraying a specific “culturally Jewish” Los Angeles family. There are other racially charged moments in the film that may sit uneasily with Jewish viewers. [popular song that includes the N-word in its title](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubRUS8GupLU) at two different intervals — first as a joke about Hill’s character being unable to say the title, then at the end under a hora — takes on a heightened meaning today. Jewish museum.) He also hired an on-set Jewish cultural consultant from Hebrew Helpers, a nationwide Jewish studies tutoring service. (The film’s premiere on Netflix on Friday coincides with International Holocaust Remembrance Day.) [prominent Black celebrities](https://www.jta.org/tag/kyrie-irving) who have dabbled in antisemitism. And when they don’t understand each other, they understand that there are, in fact, differences.” “It wasn’t about the artist of the song, it was about the words in the song.”

You People movie review: Unfolding like a rat-a-tat version of Netflix's own Master of None, the new comedy from Kenya Barris and Jonah Hill is largely ...

But despite the younger generation’s attempts to build bridges and allow love to conquer all, the cultural and racial baggage between the two communities, the movie suggests, makes it almost impossible for two people from radically different backgrounds to sustain a relationship in modern-day America. She accuses him of racism, given his inability to tell her apart from the Black driver on his Uber app, but this hits a nerve. Akbar, for instance, can’t shut up about his grandmother who used to pick cotton, and Ezra’s dad, played by He’s instantly wary of Ezra, who appears to be in active rebellion against his Jewish heritage; Hill has retained his bleach-blonde hair and tattoos. Ezra tries to tell Amira that both she and her car match the description of his ride on the app, but she’s having none of it. Together with Hill, he’s crafted a screenplay that, for at least 45 minutes, brings back memories of Judd Apatow’s heyday in all the best ways.