On paper, the delirious and discomforting new rom-com You People is about a Jewish guy and a Black woman who fall in love despite their families’ prejudices. But it arrives at an eerily perfect moment. Directed by Kenya Barris and starring Jonah Hill and Lauren London, the comedy hits Netflix just months after several high-profile, highly charged exchanges between those two communities dominated the cable news cycle — most notably inflammatory statements from Kanye West and Kyrie Irving that picked at generations-old scabs that have yet to fully heal.
Following what happens when unlucky-in-love podcaster Ezra Cohen (Hill) meets Amira Mohammed (London), Barris’ film unspools like a 21st-century Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner with a kosher soul-food kick, and a balm for our divisive moment. “The timing is really interesting,” Barris tells Tudum. “Definitely the conversation we’re having in society now happens to be something that we started three years ago. Ultimately, at the core of it, [You People] is a love letter to love, and I think that’s what the conversation really needs now — asking humanity to love a little more.”
Though Barris says that You People is like medicine served with a spoonful of sugar, its origins were hardly calculated. The project began when LA natives Barris and Hill sat down for what was supposed to be a 30-minute chat. “I grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood, and he grew up in probably a white Jewish neighborhood, whatever. But because of how LA is set up, a lot of times you end up going to schools where you’re with white and Black kids coming together.” As he and Hill shared details of their life experiences, the half-hour turned into three. And the creators began to realize how, external identities notwithstanding, they had more in common than not.
“We had so many of the same references, from hip-hop to clothes,” Barris says. “We started talking about Jewish and Black families and the ‘oppression Olympics’ — how they’ll say who had it harder. We started having jokes and concepts. We wanted to make people think.”
You People is thoughtful, to be sure. But it’s also damned funny, due in large part to its all-star, dream-team cast, which includes Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Nia Long, Elliott Gould, Rhea Perlman and David Duchovny, all of whom make the stealthy rom-com feel as much like a historical event as a two-hour-long joy ride. Every ounce a classic rom-com, You People begins as Ezra, who hosts a hip-hop culture–infused show with his friend Mo (a hilarious Sam Jay), is about to give up on love until a chance encounter with a Black girl changes both their dating histories. (Ezra actually gets in the back of Amira’s car thinking she’s a ride-share driver — an all-too-real awkward predicament familiar to many people of color.) As their perceived differences slowly melt away and a romance begins to blossom, the unlikely couple soon realizes that much more powerful than their own hangups is the baggage of their parents.
“It wasn’t them,” Barris says. “It was the people around them. And we were like, ‘Oh my god. That’s an interesting story.’ ”
Duchovny and Louis-Dreyfus strike cringe-comedy gold as Ezra’s well-meaning but obliviously “woke” parents, while Long and Murphy soar as Amira’s unflinchingly Black militant mother and father. Ezra’s parents make Amira uncomfortable by fawning over Amira with a little too much cultural appreciation, while Amira’s root their disapproval in historical oppression and low-key anti-Semitic myths. Once the families get into the nitty-gritty of their conflicts — particularly in a show-stopping dinner scene that has the elder actors squaring off in what has to be one of the most unforgettably uncomfortable sequences in a while — the pain dredged up in the dialogue manages to be raw, unflinching and shockingly real. Exhibit A: What was worse, the Holocaust or slavery?
Brutal as such moments feel, the movie’s stars, particularly Murphy and Louis-Dreyfus, not only sell Hill and Barris’ ideas but also elevate them to a place of transcendence. We know these people, and though we may not agree with them, we can empathize with them, even if they’re so ignorant they’re ridiculous. Barris, naturally, was bowled over by his veteran cast. As a first-time feature director, he often found himself marveling at his good fortune in having comedy GOATS bring the vision he and Hill had to life.
“To get this cast in your first movie, it’s like the first time you have sex, you get one of the Victoria’s Secret angels,” he jokes. “Eddie, when he steps in front of that camera, is magical. You’re like, ‘This is a movie star.’ Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a comedy legend. She thinks about the scene. We shared the monitor often, and I was like, ‘Let her do that, because she’s going to make the scene better.’ ” Barris piled equal praise on all of the film’s ensemble, including Hill (“improvisational genius”); Duchovny (“has one of the best senses of humor”); Long (“an icon”); and London, who creates a palpable romantic spark with Hill on screen. “There’s a naturalness to her,” he says. “There’s a potential for her to be like Julia Roberts. I think she’s next up.”
Barris admits that directing challenged him in ways he couldn’t have anticipated. Every human with a pulse and a Netflix account knows his bona fides by rote; from black-ish to #blackAF, Entergalactic, Astronomy Club and many more titles across TV and film. Barris is one of the rare writer-producers who’s a household name. But none of that negates how hard it was for this creative force to sit in the director’s chair on a movie set for the first time. “I [had] to man up,” he says. “I’ve written and produced movies before; I've never directed. There were days I felt like a substitute teacher, especially early on. I was like, ‘Listen to me! Listen to me!’ ” But, he adds, “If you want to sit at the cool kids’ table, you’ve got to be one of the cool kids, and sometimes it’s hard when you know you’re not cool.” He had to learn to drop his ego, listen, acquiesce when appropriate and service the project instead of himself.
That spirit of collaboration trickled down to even the title of the film, which went through a few iterations. “It was ‘Culture,’ ” he says. “ ‘For the Culture,’ then it was ‘Fuck the Culture.’ Netflix marketing came up with ‘You People.’ I’m a title guy, and to be honest, I was like, ‘I’m never going to take a title from someone else.’ ” But, he says, You People struck a chord with him in the best possible way (“It has so many different meanings”) and he was happy to concede — yet another way this project pushed Barris out of his comfort zone.
You People marks a turning point not only in Barris’s evolution, but also for romantic comedies. Aficionados of the genre know there’s a long and warm-as-a-bubble bath history of cross-cultural comedic exchange between Black folks and their Jewish neighbors: Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor’s four-film bromance; Norman Lear’s hand in creating Sanford and Son, Good Times, and The Jeffersons; Curb Your Enthusiasm’s oddball kinship between Larry David and JB Smoove. You People, with its message of overcoming differences in the name of love, shows Gen Y, Gen Z, and Gen yet-to-be-named that, actually, maybe we can all get along.
“Both cultures have contributed so much to the fabric of what America is,” Barris says, circling in on the film’s ultimate message. “We should celebrate each other’s differences. There are things that we can learn, and I think the best way we can learn is through comedy and communication.”
