You People

You People stars Eddie Murphy, Jonah Hill, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Lauren London in the Netflix rom-com about mixed marriages — but is it good?

There is a good pace to the film, which never languishes too much in the more sentimental moments. It's a very specific dynamic meant to represent a wider societal gap that is always down to the individual to cross. Hill, who co-wrote with Kenya Barris (who also directed), plays the mid-3os Ezra, who is stuck in a job he doesn't like while pursuing his passion, a culture podcast with his best friend Mo, in which the pair — white-Jewish and Black — discuss culture with tongue firmly in cheek.

It is one tiny rewrite away from a broad “Naked Gun”-esque parody of comedies that traffic in racial stereotypes and differences. Honestly, most of those ...

The tragic thing about “You People” is that it’s a good idea with a great cast. Late in the film, Amira claims that Shelley sees her like a new toy, and I wish the film had the guts to explore that idea more—how people like Shelley can be fascinated by Black culture but not in a way that ever seeks to understand it. Hill and Barris are constantly throwing in these interesting ideas and skipping away from them to the easy, unfunny joke. Admittedly, the angle here is interesting regarding social commentary in that Shelley plays one of those women who sees Black culture in purely superficial terms. Cut to six months later, when Ezra has decided to marry Amira and so steels himself to ask permission from her parents Akbar ( [Eddie Murphy](/cast-and-crew/eddie-murphy)) and Fatima ( [Nia Long](/cast-and-crew/nia-long)). It’s as if they never listened to any podcasts with racial themes, overwriting the scenes with awkward dialogue that sounds so scripted (when the whole idea is that these podcasts are casual, off-the-cuff conversations).

"You People" relies on cringe-inducing moments as the crux of its comedy, as a Jewish guy and a Black Muslim woman (neither of them particularly observant) ...

Ultimately, though, the performances feel mostly squandered as “You People” yields less than the sum of its parts, not helped by unconvincing plot conveniences down the stretch. Virginia” decision](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/03/us/interracial-marriage-blake-cec/index.html) and the release of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” – or settle for broad sitcom-style gags. That tension was also evident in Barris’ previous series for Netflix, [“#blackAF,”](https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/entertainment/blackaf-review/index.html) in which he also starred. There are also pointed observations about race relations even among those who want to be viewed as progressive, such as Shelley treating her future daughter-in-law like a fashionable accessory to be shown off. Yet the story unfolds in fits and starts, jumping forward to get to the most fertile comedic territory while montage-ing its way through the central relationship after its meet-cute origins. A topnotch cast – down to the tiny cameos – can’t fully redeem material that gets lost somewhere between satire and sitcom as assembled by star Jonah Hill and director Kenya Barris.

Lauren London plays the role of Amira Mohammed, “a laid-back LA girl” who is “very chill, goes with the flow, very stylish, very easygoing.” You People viewers ...

More recently, David has starred in The Estate and The Craft: Legacy. Viewers will recognise Molly for her roles in Animal Kingdom, Life of the Party and most notably, Booksmart. Like all the cast in You People, Julia has an incredible resume including a long list of series she has been a part of. Eddie Murphy has starred in the likes of Coming to America, Shrek and The Nutty Professor. She most recently starred in the Netflix film Look Both Ways and is set to star in the movie Missing later this year. Viewers will know Jonah best for his roles in 21 Jump Street alongside Channing Tatum, as well as The Wolf of Wall Street, alongside Hollywood icon Leonardo DiCaprio.

Even with a fantastic comedic cast, You People feels more like a series of sketches than an actual film.

But instead, You People is a missed opportunity, a half-assed reinterpretation that is only sporadically funny, and without the heart or the substance that this story would need for it to truly work. At times, it really feels like You People is just Barris throwing out all the scenarios one should expect in this type of film, never quite worrying about how long or how short of a time he spends in these moments, but instead, just focusing on spending any time in them. As it stands, You People is like an amalgamation of sketches with unusual timing, thrown together in an attempt to have some semblance of a coherent narrative. Yet You People lacks any of the insight or cleverness that made black-ish such a gem, instead feeling like a stitched-together collection of scenarios without much in the way of heart or humor. This begins the awkward clashing of worlds between the Cohen and Mohammed family, as Akbar doesn’t think Ezra is good enough for his daughter, while Ezra’s parents Shelley (Louis-Dreyfus) and Arnold (Duchovny) don’t know how to act now that their family is about to become more diverse. For eight seasons, Barris’s show was able to tackle difficult topics like police brutality, the 2016 presidential election, and racism within the span of a little over twenty minutes delicately and with insight.

From Black-ish creator Kenya Barris, Netflix's Eddie Murphy/Jonah Hill team-up is a dispiriting and dull use of tremendous comedic talent that includes Veep ...

All of this is a shame, because even if the movie is barely directed, it is stacked with comedic legends, some of whom can actually get good laughs out of Hill’s signature mumblecore bullshitting. In this mode, You People comes across as both insincere as a whole, and disingenuous when it comes to Ezra’s character. It’s fun when the actor is a supporting character, less so when he’s one of the protagonists. There can be catharsis in making fun of this in conversation or art, and it can even be a channel for growth and moving past said difficulties — which is where the appeal of a movie like Regardless of how well-meaning a person can be, any challenge to their baseline assumptions about life and the world is going to be uncomfortable and disorienting, and missteps will be made. In a beat that feels fairly true to life, neither of them fully anticipates how weird their respective families will be about their relationship.

(JTA) – The new Netflix comedy “You People,” about an uneasy union between a Jewish man and a Black woman in Los Angeles, was always aiming to provoke its ...

[Louis Farrakhan](https://www.jta.org/2018/03/02/united-states/louis-farrakhan-anti-semite-still-relevant), whose antisemitism gets a small acknowledgement, although the wedding at the end of the film is jointly officiated by a cantor and an imam meant to represent the Nation of Islam. As a Jew himself, he said it was also important to him that the film’s depiction of Judaism be “authentic.” “It was important, I think, for us to have that song remain, so that it portrayed the divide that they would have to cross,” Misher said. Detailed discussions of antisemitism, the filmmakers believed, would have distracted from that. But Misher told JTA that he thought the film did an admirable job of portraying a specific “culturally Jewish” Los Angeles family. There are other racially charged moments in the film that may sit uneasily with Jewish viewers. [popular song that includes the N-word in its title](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubRUS8GupLU) at two different intervals — first as a joke about Hill’s character being unable to say the title, then at the end under a hora — takes on a heightened meaning today. Jewish museum.) He also hired an on-set Jewish cultural consultant from Hebrew Helpers, a nationwide Jewish studies tutoring service. (The film’s premiere on Netflix on Friday coincides with International Holocaust Remembrance Day.) [prominent Black celebrities](https://www.jta.org/tag/kyrie-irving) who have dabbled in antisemitism. And when they don’t understand each other, they understand that there are, in fact, differences.” “It wasn’t about the artist of the song, it was about the words in the song.”