You, Me & Tuscany Review: Halle Bailey And Regé-Jean Page’s Rom-Com Is Giving Reheated Spaghetti

In today’s day and age, taking a seat in a movie theater to see a major studio-backed romantic comedy practically never happens. So, You, Me & Tuscany is kind of a beautiful anomaly, and I miss that kind of experience from yesteryear. But after seeing this, be warned that we’re talking about a movie that harkens closer to the hit-or-miss 2010s rather than the golden age of the 1990s and 2000s with Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page’s corny, yet cute trip to Italy.

You, Me & Tuscany comes from producer Will Packer, who has made some really fun Black-led comedies like Think Like A Man, Ride Along and Girls Trip, and this film feels like the filmmaker’s valiant effort to lean into a more romantic (but PG-13) effort with two great stars. The movie has enough to be amused by, but if you’re expecting anything more than a just-decent theatrical return to the genre, you may find yourself feeling like you’re eating grapes picked a bit too soon from the vine.

You, Me & Tuscany shares a lot of story DNA with the classic Sandra Bullock 1995 romantic comedy While You Were Sleeping. After meeting a man once, a woman gets into a situation where she gets mistaken for his fiancée and ends up running with the lie thanks to his family's overwhelming kindness (and his hot brother). Except this time, we’re in Tuscany, Italy, and it feels like a very Hollywood depiction of what the Italian version of the story would be like.

You, Me & Tuscany is a fine-enough romantic comedy to get swept into… if your expectations aren’t high.

In the case of this movie, we meet Anna (Bailey), a professional house sitter, who’s known to get swept away in her customers’ lavish lifestyles every once in a while since quitting culinary school after dealing with a tragic loss. One evening, she finds herself making the acquaintance of an Italian real estate agent named Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor) who lets her know that he has a villa in Tuscany just sitting there. Oh, and Anna somehow already has a plane ticket to Italy booked from before her loss. After some drunken encouragement from Matteo, off she goes.

Anna doesn't initially have the intention of using Matteo's place, but when her last minute trip doesn't go as planned, she decides to crash there and gets caught. In an effort to not go to prison, she goes along with their assumption that she's the fiancée of Matteo, since their meeting happened just moments after she finds a beautiful engagement ring and slips it on.

I can't help but feel like there's something disingenuous about the plotline since Anna doesn't have anywhere else to go and had already dreamt of being a chef in Italy. It makes the whole movie feel a bit too convenient and manipulative to the audience rather than having a magic to it I look for from a really good rom-com.

A lot of the movie was filmed in location in Tuscany, Italy, making for a transporting film for a little while. And yet, at the same time, there’s not enough landmarks on the itinerary to feel like you hit all the stops. Oh, and disappointingly so, the soundtrack is full of chart-topping hits and a rather unromantic Italian score.

Halle Bailey’s sweetness carries the film, and makes you root for the formulaic journey.

Funny enough, for a movie that I thought would be a launching pad for Halle Bailey outside of her The Little Mermaid role, there’s something very Disney-esque about the whole movie, give or take a few sexual innuendos. Bailey does use this to her advantage, considering her sweet, likable charm makes the ride more fun to go on. A lot of big laughs come from her best friend Claire (Aziza Scott), who she talks to throughout the trip, and her taxi driver Lorenzo (Marco Calvani) while she grounds it with lightness and heart.

Anna is a character who is basically conning an entire family for a practically free vacation and to get out of prison time, so it would be a lot harder to get on board if Anna wasn’t easy to root for. The movie’s biggest strength is in the found-family message, which is deliciously communicated through the cooking subplot of the film Anna gets pulled into by her fake family-to-be.

Regé-Jean Page is a solid romantic co-lead with Anna, who adds the kind of yearning and sexual tension we’re looking for in You, Me & Tuscany. However, the movie also decides to start with a more enemies-to-lovers vibe between them that feels a bit out of place and weak. Much like every character in the film, there’s not a lot of depth to gather from these two aside from them both having very similar life experiences to pull from a couple of conversations. Page is playing the “dream guy”, and that’s about it.

It ultimately feels like a fairytale-esque story that isn’t rooted in reality.

Throughout You, Me & Tuscany, you’ll find yourself noticing all the neat puzzle pieces of the storyline that work for Anna throughout to the point that you’ll settle for giving up and just letting the things come together in this weird alternate reality where everything is serendipitous and works in this girl’s favor despite her frequent carelessness. There’s also quite a few beats that one could easily guess shortly before it happens. Though, I will give the movie a few extra points for breaking what I expected out of the characters on a few occasions.

Don’t get me wrong: Kat Coiro’s movie is absolutely watchable, and adequately balances funny moments with the whole will-they-won’t-they of it all. But there’s nothing incredibly swoon-worthy here to write home about. If you like yourself a rom-com, you’ll get your helping of all the ingredients that will fill you up by the time you leave, but it lacks the pizzazz that can turn a movie from the genre into a gem or all-time favorite. And hey, that’s OK! It’s just that there’s been so many middling romantic comedies of this caliber as of late.