You, Me & Tuscany

All some romantic comedies need are two attractive stars in a stunning location, and the movie will practically take care of itself. You, Me & Tuscany is such a movie. It tells the story of Anna, played by Halle Bailey (from 2023’s The Little Mermaid and The Color Purple), a professional house sitter who, after following her no-nonsense best friend’s life advice, finds herself in Italy. There, she ends up in a familiar scenario for this sort of thing: Low on cash and with nowhere to stay, she sneaks into a villa owned by Mateo (Lorenzo de Moor), an Italian businessman she met in New York. She knows he won’t be there and resolves to squat. Through a series of misunderstandings, she must explain herself to Mateo’s family. After all, she’s wearing his grandmother’s wedding ring, which she found in a junk drawer. Anna tells them that she and Mateo will be married. Trouble is, she ends up falling for Mateo’s cousin, Michael (Regé-Jean Page), a winemaker born in England and raised in Italy. Fortunately, she receives some more life advice, this time from a goofball cab driver (Marco Calvani), who tells her, “Maybe by living a fake life you’ll find truth in your own.”  

Like many romantic comedies, the plot hinges on a deception that gets out of control. Anna spends most of the movie trying to conceal her lie, all the while digging herself in deeper, making the inevitable confession all the more miserable in the moment. Amusingly, Anna calls her predicament a “fairy tale nightmare,” a descriptor that might describe this breed of romantic comedy where a perfect relationship begins under false pretenses, and the protagonist spends much of the movie in a simultaneous state of amorous bliss and dread over being discovered. Think While You Were Sleeping (1995) and Never Been Kissed (1999), but the template goes back to Cyrano de Bergerac (1897), I suppose. The scenery and elements of the plot recall Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), a clear reference point. There’s also a hint of Powell and Pressburger’s I Know Where I’m Going! (1945), where the protagonist falls in love with the guy who initially annoyed her. When Anna first arrives in Italy, Michael cuts in line to buy the last gourmet sandwich from a local shop, much to Anna’s frustration. That disdain doesn’t last.  

Suffice to say, screenwriter Ryan Engle (who conceived the story with his partner Kristin Engle) borrows from a tattered copy of the rom-com playbook. Watching Mateo’s family, who represent a wide range of Italian stereotypes and tropes, I couldn’t help but think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002). No doubt that’s why director Kat Coiro, helmer of the hit Marry Me (2022), cast Nia Vardalos in a cameo role. Living in Mateo’s villa, Anna wakes up every morning to the gardener, Giuseppe (Emanuele Pacca), singing opera, receiving disapproving looks from Mateo’s grandmother, Nonna (Stefania Casini), and hearing about the sexual escapades between his sister, Francesca (Stella Pecollo), and the plumber. There’s also a tender subplot about Anna dropping out of culinary school with just two months to go because her mother passed away. Mateo’s father, Vincenzo (Paolo Sassanelli), sees potential in her cooking, and sure enough, he will eventually inspire her to return to cooking in his family’s restaurant.

However commonplace the characters are, the performances are lively and charming. Bailey glows onscreen, so it’s easy to see why Mateo’s family falls for her. And her chemistry with Page is instant. The movie prolongs their coupling for as long as possible, dangling the obvious resolution along the way: Mateo returns and initially goes along with Anna’s deception to repair his estranged relationship with his family, but he’s drawn to Isabella (Desirèe Pöpper), his former fiancée. Could it be that Mateo and Isabella will end up together, just as Anna and Michael will? I’ll never tell. Though it’s not difficult to guess after Anna and Michael share a wine-drinking montage at his vineyard, followed by a sequence where the sprinklers shower them, only so the camera can ogle Michael’s eight-pack abs in slow motion. Besides the audience, the wise old patriarch Vincenzo seems to be the only one who knows who will end up with whom. 

The production benefits from gorgeous location shooting in Italy, where the rolling hills and sun-ripened landscapes look picturesque, even painterly. Cinematographer Danny Ruhlmann’s camera lavishes attention on the exquisite-looking cuisine and village life that resembles Federico Fellini’s Amarcord (1973), delivering liberal doses of food and travel porn. Coiro needs only to supply a straightforward presentation; the beautiful locales and vibrant people add the color. Still, in terms of execution, there’s a distracting amount of ADR loaded with jokes and exposition. Note the out-of-nowhere cutaways to a bus tour with voyeur-tourists who want what Anna’s having (namely, Michael) and the random comic-relief voicemails from Anna’s pregnant friend (Aziza Scott). Both seem like afterthoughts to inject more laughs and play like reshoots or post-production additions to punch up the material. Not that the movie would lack laughs otherwise. The aforementioned cabbie and horny sister made me laugh out loud several times. 

You, Me & Tuscany doesn’t reinvent the wheel; instead, it presents the cinematic equivalent of pasta alla ruota—a massive parmesan wheel on which hot pasta is tossed for a delectably cheesy dish. The ingredients are simple, ordinary even, but their preparation is a delicious novelty. Indeed, the movie serves up no real surprises. Anna fulfills her dream of becoming a chef in Italy, gets the guy (the one she really wants), repairs Mateo’s family, and will probably live happily ever after in an idyllic life that looks like a travelogue cooking show. But there’s a certain pleasure in a well-made and often silly romance like this one, no matter how predictable it is. The performers and setting enhance every routine aspect of the story, and it’s genuinely touching. As a comfort food movie with a terrific cast, a charmingly blithe tone, and swoon-worthy romance, it’s exactly what it needs and wants to be.