Spoilers for I Don’t Understand You are ahead! You can catch this 2025 movie release in theaters now.
I Don’t Understand You is a twisty new horror movie that keeps taking turns until the final moments. It follows a couple, Dom and Cole, who are played by Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells, on an Italian vacation as they find out they’re able to adopt a baby. Quickly, things take a turn for the worse, but not in the way you’d expect, as Kroll and Rannells' characters become responsible for killing a whole family. Now, that alone is twisty; however, the biggest turn to me happened at the end when they got away with it.
So, when I interviewed the co-directors and writers of this fun horror comedy, I asked why Dom and Cole got away with everything they did. In response, Brian Crano told me:
You know, I think that the movie is about what you would do for your kids. And there are huge numbers of things that go on in your life with your child, where you're like, ‘Oh, that was close,’ you know? So I think it's just sort of to connect people back to that feeling and like, give your kid a snuggle and, you know, feel good about it.
While I Don’t Understand You is hilarious and totally fits into the work you’d expect from Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells, the horror aspect, as well as the meaning behind it, was unexpected.
There’s so much truth in it, too. While the circumstances are wild – I mean, these two accidentally and purposefully kill multiple people over the course of one night in a rural Italian home – the drive they have to get home is relatable. They just found out their baby was about to be born, and they weren’t going to die in this home that they were convinced was a bad place. So, they did what they had to do to get out.
In the end, they made it out and back to the States and got their baby. Then, the movie ended with them filming another adoption video for a second child years later.
They fully, fully got away with all of this, and they did it because they wanted to get home to their child.
However, there’s a bit more to this. David Joseph Craig also told me that the ending of this movie symbolizes an “accommodation” that some Americans expect when they travel abroad. These guys didn’t speak Italian and couldn’t communicate with this family, which is what led to all of their deaths, and in the end, it was Dom and Cole who made it out alive. To that point, Caig said:
There’s also an accommodation that we expect from when we're traveling as Americans. And I think that that's kind of a nod to, like, the almost the graciousness of an Italian family is that they would take the fall, and the Americans would get away with it.
Overall, there’s a lot to unpack with this ending. Should Dom and Cole have gotten away with it? Did they do the right thing to be with their kid? Were their actions justified? And would you do something like that in an effort to get to and be with your child?
It’s 100% something to really think about, and it will be on my mind every time I go back to watch the hilarious and terrifying film I Don’t Understand You.
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