In You, Me & Tuscany, Anna (Halle Bailey) is a broke housesitter squandering her potential. She\u2019s a trained chef, but her career was put on the back-burner after her mother died, and now she throws herself into the temporary luxury of other people\u2019s lives. On a fateful trip to a New York hotel bar, where her bestie Claire (Aziza Scott) has promised she can charge her phone, she meets Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor), a drop-dead gorgeous Italian real estate broker. They hit it off, but while Matteo\u2019s jetlag prevents them from having a one-night stand, the memory of his unoccupied, beyond-picturesque Tuscan villa lingers in Anna\u2019s mind, a North Star that reanimates her love for Italian cuisine, culture, and climate.<\/p>\n
This is where things get messy, and for the film\u2019s purposes, exciting: There is no room available at his village when she arrives, so Anna crashes in Matteo\u2019s villa, knowing it\u2019s empty\u2014and when Matteo\u2019s agitated Italian family discovers the American squatter, she is saved by a family heirloom engagement ring that she put on after rooting through Matteo\u2019s things. Naturally, they assume she\u2019s Matteo\u2019s fiance. As it seems to be the only way to avoid being arrested, Anna confirms their assumption. The rest of You, Me & Tuscany is spent adding tension to this convoluted lie\u2014not least being the addition of Matteo\u2019s winegrower cousin Michael (Reg\u00e9-Jean Page), who resents Matteo for abandoning his family and happens to be a much better fit for Anna.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You, Me & Tuscany gets its genre fundamentals correct\u2014this is a terrific rom-com premise, as absurd as it is titillating, loaded with conflict that promises to lead to a happy ending. But if You, Me & Tuscany gets the peppy, frivolous basics right, its brushwork is way off. The film is only truly successful if you watch it from the middle distance, where it\u2019s easy to conclude that it resembles a good rom-com without having to diagnose its atrocious visual design, tropey plotting, and queasy comedy for what it is\u2014a tired, flat mishandling of high-potential material.<\/p>\n
This is Halle Bailey\u2019s first lead role since playing Ariel in the live-action The Little Mermaid<\/a>, and she brings a similar peppy enthusiasm (with far less na\u00efvet\u00e9) to Anna. From the moment she arrives on vacation, Anna is chipper and forthright, but while she\u2019s savvy enough to save her skin with the engagement lie, she balks at the repeated opportunities to confess her deception. Anna is a well-rounded stab at a rom-com protagonist\u2014someone who knows the value of chasing her desires but lacks the conviction and integrity to be honest with the people she\u2019s deceived in the process. Anna is so happy with the vibes\u2014the picturesque locale, Matteo\u2019s eccentric and adoring family, the luxury of this new, fake life, the food\u2014that she won\u2019t push back against the boundaries of this too-good-to-be-true fantasy.<\/p>\n Enter the film\u2019s dollop of cynicism: Michael, who gets off on the wrong foot with Anna by stealing the last sandwich from the village deli and makes up for it by showing her around the village during the prep for a big, traditional festival. Surprise, surprise, they hit it off just like Anna and Matteo did, especially after a few glasses of wine (and after he massages grape-growing soil through her fingers). When Anna and Michael are being flirty and reckless, You, Me & Tuscany is a lot of fun\u2014there\u2019s a patent absurdity to the body-brushes, shirt-removals, and breathy near-kisses that nimbly synthesizes both \u201crom\u201d and \u201ccom.\u201d But Page is far more suited to Michael\u2019s snarkiness than the character\u2019s dashing romance responsibilities\u2014when Matteo eventually returns, Page is convincingly intense as a jealous, feuding cousin, but he\u2019s less convincing as Anna\u2019s sultry pursuer. He channels Black Bag<\/a> far more than he does Bridgerton<\/a>.<\/p>\n