There are movies that play well as light entertainment but err by trying to say something too deep. You People is the opposite. The only reason to have a film in which a white Jewish man courts a Black Muslim woman is, in and of itself, a thing is if the movie has something to say not about why we are all the same but how our differences matter even when we are trying to move past them. There was a set up for that movie in which Jonah Hill’s Ezra, a white Jew who does a savvy and snarky podcast on Black culture with his best friend, meets Lauren London’s Amira, a woman who is struggling with her own relationship with her father’s strictness about what it means to be a proud Black person and her desire not to be trapped in his Nation of Islam inspired stringency. Both of those characters are brought to life in the beginning of the movie and as they get serious and fall in love. Amira has her moment of gritting her teeth as Ezra’s over the top parents fall over themselves inadvertently other-ing her even as they try to make her welcome. It’s rough, but Ezra’s humor gets us through it.
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Listening to the People in You People
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There are movies that play well as light entertainment but err by trying to say something too deep. You People is the opposite. The only reason to have a film in which a white Jewish man courts a Black Muslim woman is, in and of itself, a thing is if the movie has something to say not about why we are all the same but how our differences matter even when we are trying to move past them. There was a set up for that movie in which Jonah Hill’s Ezra, a white Jew who does a savvy and snarky podcast on Black culture with his best friend, meets Lauren London’s Amira, a woman who is struggling with her own relationship with her father’s strictness about what it means to be a proud Black person and her desire not to be trapped in his Nation of Islam inspired stringency. Both of those characters are brought to life in the beginning of the movie and as they get serious and fall in love. Amira has her moment of gritting her teeth as Ezra’s over the top parents fall over themselves inadvertently other-ing her even as they try to make her welcome. It’s rough, but Ezra’s humor gets us through it.