You, Me & Tuscany

by Mike McGranaghan

The issue with romantic comedies as a genre is that so many from the ‘80s and ‘90s were such big hits that it’s become too easy for filmmakers to recycle the same cliches over and over. The idea that they must contain certain elements, including the obligatory “meet cute,” often supplants the desire to do something fresh. When a clever one does come along, such as last year’s The Baltimorons, it typically struggles to find an audience. Excessive familiarity is apparently easier to market than originality.

That brings us to You, Me & Tuscany, a pleasant but shallow rom-com that may well turn out to be a box office hit. It’s a nice enough movie. The things that are strong about the story are, however, repeatedly drowned out by conventions we’ve seen a million times.

Anna (Halle Bailey) is a culinary school dropout working as a professional housesitter. While drinking away her blues in a hotel bar, she meets Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor), an Italian real estate investor. He casually mentions that he left his hometown of Tuscany, vacating a beautiful villa in the process. Anna conveniently has a plane ticket to Italy, and since there is nowhere else to stay, she lets herself into his empty house. She finds an engagement ring in a drawer, puts it on, and is immediately discovered by Matteo’s mother Gabriella (Isabella Ferrari) and Nonna Alessia (Stefania Casini).

What’s a girl to do? Convince everyone that she’s Matteo’s fiancée, of course. The family welcomes her with open arms. Then she meets Michael (Regé-Jean Page), Gabriella’s nephew/adopted son. Despite initially not liking each other - a particularly ancient trope - the two have an undeniable attraction. That poses a very big problem because everybody thinks she’s marrying Matteo and revealing the truth would cause a huge scandal.

The best thing about the film is Halle Bailey. As in The Little Mermaid, she proves to be an incessantly likeable, charismatic actress. Anna posing as a fake fiancée is a sitcom-level contrivance, yet she transcends that by giving an emotionally sincere performance. Emphasizing Anna’s guilt over her lie goes a long way toward earning our compassion. Bailey is well paired with Page, as the two work up nice chemistry together. It’s easy to believe these people would fall madly in love.

There’s also a secondary plot about how Anna needs to find her place in life. Her trajectory has become derailed, taking her away from her passion for cooking. Bailey pulls this off beautifully, too, making the character’s “lost” quality seem genuine, as opposed to a simplistic trait. If you’ve ever seen a romantic comedy, you know Anna will find her direction from this experience. The actress nevertheless portrays the transition with heart and soul.

What’s frustrating is that You, Me & Tuscany relies on a lot of the genre’s creakiest cliches. Aside from the fact that the plot requires a series of dumb contrivances to march forward, we’re treated to the scene where Michael has to take his shirt off in front of Anna. And Matteo’s conniving ex-fiancée, who shows up at just the right moment to create trouble. And the beyond coincidental accident that requires Anna to save the family’s restaurant by cooking a gourmet meal for its guests.

Even little moments fall back on old chestnuts. Upon realizing Gabriella and Nonna Alessia have entered Matteo’s home, she climbs out a window and attempts to shimmy down a pipe. That pipe detaches from the side of the house, sending her plummeting to the ground in full view of the very people she’s hiding from. We see it coming a mile away.

Watching Bailey and Page fall in love onscreen is a pleasure. You, Me & Tuscany has solid acting, gorgeous locations, and an appealing couple at its center. For those reasons, I kept wishing the screenplay would stop reverting to rom-com stereotypes. All the predicable shenanigans detract from an otherwise charming love story.

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