“You People” is Made by and for the Wrong People.

I had been here before. I knew the road well. “Coming to America 2” as a viewing experience bordered on trauma. It was like someone bringing a loved one back to life just to get me to watch them wither and crumble away for two hours in front of my eyes. Pound for pound one of the absolute funniest movies of all time was drained of every bit of its essence, of its physicality, of its variety of personalities, and of its own personality. I had watched “Black-ish” and grown tired and weary of it because its commentary was flat when it wasn't shallow and most times it was both. I've never been a big fan of Jonah Hill's brand of comedy and interracial romance as portrayed in film and television today is the bane of my existence, and Barris is the King of that domain, so I really should have known not to believe that Eddie Murphy, nor Nia Long could save this movie from it's creator, because while his actors may have the range, Kenya Barris does not.

The plot of Barris’s latest “You People” is cut and dry. Jonah Hill's character Ezra is looking for love but can't seem to find it. Lauren London plays Amira, an up and coming costume designer whose most recent relationship was broken off because she felt as though her ex wasn't really seeing her and only said things that “he thought she wanted to hear”. Ezra's close black friend, (his ONLY black friend in the movie) makes the observation that she's “Never seen a man that desperate to be in a relationship, but what that could mean or say about Ezra is never addressed in his budding relationship with Amira. Neither is his relationship with Hip Hop housed within any sort of meaningful critique of the history of cultural appropriation within the culture. A white male with exactly one black friend, two well intentioned but still racist parents and a couple racist friends is never questioned within the context of the movie about his bonafides, or whether or not his own blindspots play a role in the couples future troubles. If “You People” had positioned itself as a light but raunchy romp that only seeks to have fun with the subject I would question why, but still deal with it on these terms, but if there is any doubt this movie wants to say something to you its finale -from London’s checking of Julia Louise Dreyfus, to Eddie Murphy’s mea culpa- cements that it is indeed. The fact that Ezra spends the entire movie repeating the exact same sin as Amira’s ex is also never brought into play, despite the fact that he takes it a step further by way of hyperbolic obvious lies because he doesn't just want to say he doesn't know about a subject or that he's never done or experienced it, many of which he does because he thinks its what they want to hear and wants to please both Amira and her father Akbar (Murphy). In this movie arcs become dead ends, commentary becomes a cul-de-sac. I don't think “You People” is aiming for Oscars so this is not about having them aim for a comedy the likes of “Doctor Strangelove”. I'm not even asking for Mel Brooks “Blazing Saddles” even though that movie too is hilarious and has some scathing commentary for white people. I'm asking for “Meet the Fockers”, or “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins”. My biggest issue with “You People” is not just the fact that it's commentary is as basic and wrong headed as it can get, it is also that nothing he’s saying here is at all new or fresh, in fact its very very stale. It is that what could be an insightful, incisive, hilarious but honest look at what it means to date interracially in 2023 is ditched for a farce that illustrates the limitations of Barris’s mind and black representation. A farce in which its main joke is the 2023 equivalent of Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney’s Ebony and Ivory lyric “We all know that people are the same wherever you go there is good and bad in ev'ryone”. Arguably worse still its just not executed well. The characters are not characters they're just props for the punchlines, it could be argued they are the punchlines. Jonah Hill and Lauren London aren't characters, their pawns in Barris’s Green Book version of romance. Eddie Murphy’s Akbar (despite a laudable effort from Murphy to create one) doesn't have characteristics he is a caricature, there is nothing really there outside of the fact that he is a member of the Nation of Islam and all the jokes extend forth from the fact that he is a member of the Nation of Islam. Nia Long’s character (in a completely thankless role) can only be described as “Wife of a member of the nation of Islam. Barris pits those extremely vague characterizations against the other in Duchovny’s and Dreyfus’s Jewish “White People” and we get some comedy fireworks, but a struck match of a romance and dumb racial commentary.

By comparison 2004's “Meet the Fockers” is a far superior example of how to employ this type of familial comedy in writing and how important drawing out believable people helps reinforce all the other aspects of the film. Bernie and Rozalin Cohen (Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand) are exaggerations of real people grounded in a specificity that contains all kinds of details. The fact that the Fockers referred to their home as “Focker Isle” on a sign posted outside their home is an example of one of those tiny but informative details. That Bernie erected a small shrine to all of his sons small victories is another. That shrine represents an important and very endearing detail of Bernie's form of love towards his son which is in direct contrast to the very rigid, literal, authoritative, pass/fail style of DeNiro's Jack Byrnes. The laugh that later comes from Jack Burns line “I've never seen such a celebration of mediocrity” comes from the specificity of Jack Burns worldview, and subsequently so too does any commentary that one might derive from this particular character. There's none of this kind of character building or world building in “You people”. Eddie Murphy’s Akbar Mohammed doesn't want his daughter with Ezra because he's not black, why does that matter to Akbar? ..the only thing I can derive from the movie is because Akbar is a member of NOI. All the real reasons black people have to be leery of interracial dating are left unexplored which ultimately leaves the viewer with only one real summation; that it is as hard for white people in black spaces as it is us in white spaces. Which may be the aspect of the film that grated on me the most because it's by and large not true. Black people do not make it anywhere near as tough for white people to be in our spaces as they do us, and that includes our familial settings. We are far more likely to to be incredibly gracious in front of white folks even if on the inside we have something more to say. That is in no way to suggest that we are docile or anything of the sort, but that is to say that the kind of situations that are created in “You People” where black people like Akbar are the instigators of issues with white folks is mostly a fantasy and one I don't see the point of engaging in even for comedy. This is one of the rare occasions I found myself asking that ever-present online question “Who is this for?”

Following the lead of a film that is so reductive in its wisdom about just about anything from character, to romance, to racial commentary I'd like to give some reductive wisdom of my own. If no one can imagine or even desire to see you're two leads fu****g in your romantic comedy it's already in trouble. Jonah Hill is to put it kindly nobody's romantic lead. It's not about aesthetics, it's about energy and he just doesn't have it. Jonah Hill is not a particularly introspective actor, I don't mean he's not an introspective person he's just not an introspective actor. There's very little he gives to us that comes from the inside. Like alot of funny people, his comedy acts as a buffer to letting you know anything real about him, unlike many of the people that came before him (like Eddie Murphy) Hill’s dramatic turns have been largely uneffecting, this effects the people that he plays, so most of the time when he's played great characters it's been the writing/direction that put him in the position to use the traits and skills that he does have in a way that works around the circuitry and blockages that he has in the way of giving any insight to what he's doing and why he's doing it (think what the Winter/ Scorsese combination does for him in WOWS). To fall in love with men on screen you have to give us the keys to who that person might be and you got to give us the keys a little bit to who you are, true TRUE vulnerability is key. Barris is not the kind of writer or director to illustrate what the actor cant see, and he also doesn't seem to understand romance or how it works at all, save through banter and hijinks. In the meet-cute of the movie Ezra meets Amira when he mistakenly believes she's an Uber driver. Magically through Kenya's writing it just happens to be that Ezra wasn't making an unconsciously biased decision based on expectations, but was himself the victim of an absolutely magical set of circumstances because there was a woman who looked exactly like her, who drove her exact car, who was due to pick him up at this exact time as she was parked out there to get directions. When the issue is seen for what it is and Ezra says that he can show Amira where she needs to go as a way to make up for this incident, Barris cuts the scene right there. Its a head scratching choice, because in actuality that would be the place to introduce us to the beginning inklings of what Amira may see in Ezra. Left as is are we to assume that an almost “racism” was so cute that she decided a date was next?… Because there was nothing there to suggest ANY connection and yet the very next scene she announces to her brother they’re meeting for lunch . When they meet there is again little in the way of any real connection between these two. A few words are exchanged and there’s a montage that shows their connection not any actual exchanges.

Everything that makes James L Brooks 1997 hit “As Good As it Gets” memorable “You make me want to be a better man” line so grand extends out from the very real work put into showing how these people connected in the first place, and that from building very real, three dimensional characters to fill out the world of the movie from Ivan Reitman’s charming doctor to Skeet Ulrich’s sketchy hustler. We collectively as an audience connect to Nicholson's statement because we've seen it throughout the movie. We've watched his evolution so it means something. We also know what it means to Helen in the context of how unpredictable it is to determine what might come out of this man's mouth and and how surprising it must have been to hear something this genuinely sweet and endearing even if in a certain context its a little bit problematic. To be fair, “You people” is not without its charms; the David Duchovny piano scene will fold anyone into hearty belly laughter. Lauren London's monologue to Julia Louise-Dreyfus is a potent commentary, (its also the only good one) Mike Epps and others are funny as hell in their cameo like roles, and Eddie Murphy, Nia Long, Julia Louise-Dreyfus, and David Duchovny are a delight the entire movie, but the movie-goer shouldn't be asked to survive by the breadcrumbs of talented actors trying to scratch together a meal on their skill and one good monologue alone. Worst of all it's quite jolting and telling to see a movie written and directed by a black man that feels so easily figures to be one written and directed by a white man. “The white boy who deeply understands black culture, but rejected by a form of reverse racism”, the “funny black gay friend”, the “good white people and the bad white people”, the “I don't see color I just see a human being” bow on top. It's 2023 we shouldn't be accepting these kinds of films from White creators and it doesn't make it any different for me that this one happens to be black with a white friend on tow. It's just further representation of the fact that all representation isn't good representation. Exemplified by the fact that Kenya Barris’s shows and films don't really get us, and mostly exist to give white people palatable content about black people for a profit.