You People

Grade: C+

Watching You People – a new Netflix Original movie – made me wonder if Jonah Hill and Kenya Barris were competing in a one-liner contest when they wrote it. Any potential character development is squashed by the overbearing screenplay, which suffocates the movie with wall-to-wall currently trendy phrases and buzzwords about race, sexuality, social issues, and the like. This can work well when it’s done smartly and sparingly, like in Bodies Bodies Bodies – a movie from last summer that I greatly admired.

There are some very good people in You People, but their characters never get to bloom or breathe, and the actors don’t get to fly like they usually do. Eddie Murphy, a legendary comedian and impressionist with boundless energy and range, is reduced to spending the whole movie being quiet, serious, and unrelentingly nasty to his prospective son-in-law. The screenplay doesn’t help matters any, as misunderstandings and poorly chosen terms pile on like the most annoying farces.

Jonah Hill stars as Ezra. He does a podcast about race with his female African-American best friend. One day, he happens upon Amira (Lauren London), in one of the most irritating, implausible Meet Cutes I have ever seen. They end up getting romantically involved. They are cute together. Hill and London are delightful performers. It comes time for them to meet each other’s parents. In a fun nod to popular 90s television, Hill’s parents are played by Agent Mulder and Elaine: David Duchovny and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Eddie Murphy and Nia Long do the honors as the other set of parents. Speaking of 90s TV, the scene transitions probably could be done on anybody’s computer, and would have looked dated even then.

We know what will happen at the end, and I kept watching to see HOW it happened, and if the film would ever overcome its clunky dialogue and take off. It doesn’t. Hill, trying desperately to please Murphy, is constantly spouting lines like “I love Malcolm X. He’s the GOAT. He’s my jam. Can’t get enough of him. I quote him all the time.” And what are the odds that key characters from all over the city would be tuning into Hill’s podcast at the same time so they can hear some crucial lines that would make them feel some kind of way?

The ending leaves so much to unpack, but instead, they just abandon the suitcases. The idea that everything could be solved with one conversation, not to mention the possibility, logistics, time, and communication necessary for what happens next, is a gross oversimplification. There is an offscreen telephone conversation near the end that we are not privy to, but it would have been so interesting to have heard. I like the actors in You People. Unfortunately, they are at the mercy of a script that never gets out of the way of its movie.

Grade: C+