You People, the story of an interracial couple in Los Angeles, is a satire that takes a black-and-white approach to comedy. Yes, Eddie Murphy, Jonah Hill and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are comedic royalty, and seeing them riff on screen is never less than pleasant, but this Netflix release goes too far in some instances and not far enough in others.
Viewers with a long memory will remember the original interracial romantic comedy, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, in which a Black man arrives at his girlfriend’s house to literal gasps. It was the main inspiration for Get Out, as well as other interracial romances like Jungle Fever and Joy Luck Club. Less a remake than a reimagining, You People –directed by Black-ish creator Kenya Barris– has taken the family recipe and added a full-course meal of cringe.
When we meet Ezra Cohen (Hill), he’s being questioned about his tattoos at temple with his Jewish family– skin ink is prohibited in the Torah and in Jewish cemeteries. But Ezra knows what he likes and follows his gut when he asks out Amira Mohammed (Lauren London), a Black Muslim woman who looks past their differences and decides they should spend every second of the day together in pillow forts and the coffee shops of L.A. That is, until she “meets the parents.”
Over dinner, Ezra’s mother Shelley (Dreyfus) spends a good 10-minutes saying she’s not a racist and his father Arnold (David Duchovny) talks about his obsession with Pimp My Ride, assuming that will earn him brownie points. Hey, at least he doesn’t bring up his love of basketball. Oh, wait…he does. Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse, Arnold says Magic Johnson was the most talented basketball player he’s ever seen. Yikes!
Most of the movie boils down to a bunch of people saying racist and racist-ish stuff that no one would say in real life. Ezra and Amira survive their dinner -barely- only to arrive at another sit-down with Amira’s mother Fatima (Nia Long) and father…
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