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Film Probe

You People (2023), Jonah Hill's newest comedy | Review

The premise of the 1967’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner feature has been reimagined for millennials, essentially a white individual brings their partner home to meet their parents but issues quickly arise when they learn their partner is black. In this sporadically funny but also overstretched culture-clash comedy. Ezra, played by Jonah Hill who also co-wrote the screenplay, plays a Jewish investment banker who organically meets Black costume designer Amira. The pair instantly fall for each other but quickly start realise their relationship may be more of an issue for their parents than anyone else.


In this star-crossed lovers storyline the first forty minutes has Ezra interacting with Amira’s parents in one of the most excruciatingly awkward and incredibly overworked scenes of dialogue I have ever watched. We also witness Ezra’s family undermine and accidentally offend Amira several times in a very idiotic way. The movies has some genuinely funny moments but sadly they are few and far between.


Jonah Hill has a very affected way of performing, he doesn’t seem to stick to the written dialogue and obviously rambles for far too long off script. Sometimes it’s effective and sometimes it’s boring. You People (2023) doesn’t just try to combat racial and social issues but also throws in clashes of religion and belief, I found the narrative to be too broad, trying to force in one too many negatives to a comedy. The whole film is full of angst and anger, it wasn’t enjoyable to watch and simply made me feel anxious.


Overall, the storyline and the core narrative are strong. I think this movie deserved to be executed better and written better, with less overworked comedy and improvisation. You People (2023) is barely a comedy and tries too hard for the laugh, at it’s centre we see a truly heart-warming love story but sadly the love story is hardly the focus point of the film.

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