You, Me & Tuscany – In Vino Veritas

Full transcript of You, Me & Tuscany – In Vino Veritas.

0:00KT: It's another week in the For Your Reference household, and it is another romcom, lovers. Nice. We so back. Before we get started, Oti, right off the bat, what's your favorite romcom? And don't say You've Got Mail. Well, you can, but not Tom Hanks.

0:18Oti: Um

0:20KT: Also, Tom Hanks, Billy Crystal, those were some busted-ass male leads. What do you mean, was there no requirement? I'm not even talking about chicken and broccoli requirements. I just mean in the face requirements.

0:34Oti: Wow. You're talking Meg Ryan deserved better.

0:38KT: Well, that just shows ladies orgasm over feelings. Favorite romcom?

0:46Oti: Oh, I've gotta go with Love Jones.

0:51KT: There we go. We're talking about beautiful faces, you win, Oti. Um, I'm going to say Last Holiday.

0:58Oti: Okay.

0:59KT: Maybe some themes, maybe some correlations. And also, if I can cheat, BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice.

1:08Oti: I'm glad you didn't take, um, what's the name of the movie with Queen Latifah getting cheated on as a second option all the time?

1:17KT: With Paula Patton.

1:18Oti: Yeah.

1:18KT: He's Common as hell.

1:20Oti: Oh, wow.

1:22KT: He's Jack Harlow's hat. That's how much I despise his character in Just Wright. How dare you.

1:30Oti: Just Wright.

1:30KT: Right.

1:31Oti: That was

1:32KT: We were falling in love and you ruined it, Oti.

1:34Oti: Yeah. I don't know, at the end of that movie, whether or not I felt like this is resolved. I was like, bro

1:41KT: You can't tie everything into a nice little bow.

1:45Oti: Yeah, there's some mess that you just have to walk away from.

1:47KT: You can't just romcom-bow that shit. No. Um, well, let's go back to Love Jones and Last Holiday. Friends and lovers, grab snacks. And yeah, I'm so excited. I'm so excited. Let's get into the show. Hey, friends and In Vino Veritas lovers. Welcome back to the For Your Reference podcast. You got your Italian, maybe not Italian, you never question white people in other countries, Italian podcast host, KT.

2:22Oti: And your brother, Oti.

2:31KT: We're starting off spicy.

2:32Oti: Uh-huh.

2:35KT: Ooh, sploosh. Friends and lovers, I am very excited to talk about this today, and the most exciting is this was supposed to be a Ref Max. We haven't had—well, Oti hasn't had a chance to watch Project Hail Mary. We did have the unfortunate chance to start The Bride!, and this is why we have a full review of You, Me & Tuscany. You know when you watch—like, I don't watch the F1, but when you watch the F1 and they all crash into each other and there's a clear winner or the only winner? This is not like the LA Marathon where that man started sprinting out of nowhere. We have a clear winner.

3:14Oti: I don't know what F1 you're referring to, but yeah.

3:17KT: You know when the cars crash into each other?

3:19Oti: More NASCAR than F1, isn't it?

3:22KT: Ew. And that's why you were struggling to name a romcom earlier, my love.

3:27Oti: Oh, wow.

3:29KT: Oh, welcome. Welcome, friends and lovers. Oh, I'm so excited. It's been so long. I do have a romcoms ranking, so don't worry, friends and lovers, we are splooshy and nasty, but we're also very romantic, and I'm very excited to get into this episode today. Um, so let's get into our—oh. Halle Bailey, Regé-Jean Page, Marco Calvani, Aziza Scott as the best friend. We're gonna get into potential tropes, Oti, as well. Directed by Kat Coiro, screenplay by Ryan Engle. He has been in the background in all this press tour, we've definitely seen Kat. And also, if we don't get time, I just wanna say I enjoyed the way that this was filmed. It wasn't done in a weird, gross man-pervy way. Um, and also go check out our P-Valley episode and P-Valley if Diamond ever is coming back. And big, big shout-outs to Will Packer.

4:20Oti: Hmm.

4:21KT: Universal as well. If you are in Australia like we are, it is only showing—and Sydney's like one of the major cities—it's only showing for a week, friends and lovers. So, um, if you love romcoms, please make sure you go out and see it. Most of my recommendations are very sad and heavy, so please go and watch the fucking fun ones that I'm telling you to watch. Before we get into the first impressions, let me get our intro out. I was just so excited to stumble into the airport and fall in love with you, my love.

4:49Oti: Mm.

4:50KT: Sip on wine truths and do some soul searching while being serenaded under the Tuscan sun. You should hire me to write your intros and bylines. Friends and lovers, fall in love with You, Me & Tuscany and Oti and me this week. Now let's get into the non-spoiler first impressions, my love.

5:13Oti: Bursting with charm and genuine heart, Halle and Regé prove they're a romcom pairing worth rooting for.

5:21KT: Okay, so it was a perfect film based off that? There's no insights that it wasn't perfect for you?

5:26Oti: I loved it. I loved the movie, and I guess my setup to this quote will be discussed later because it touches—

5:33KT: Oh, you want the pull quote to be shiny vibes.

5:36Oti: It touches on some other aspects of the movie industry.

5:40KT: I'm gonna get it on the floor.

5:42Oti: Mm.

5:42KT: Okay. You, Me & Tuscany resonates with the parts of us that yearn for love, healing, and living our dreams. The family dynamic was an interesting exploration, but also divided the time between romcom and self-discovery.

6:01Oti: Okay.

6:02KT: That was a nice way to give a critique.

6:05Oti: It was. It was.

6:06KT: Like, I don't think the family part, which we'll get into, I don't think them introducing, you know, sometimes you don't have a family, sometimes you don't have the best family, you have your found family—I don't think that that was a waste of runtime. But I think if we are juggling the quintessential romcom and even like the self-discovery, you know, on Anna's part, it did get less time. You know what I mean? So, if it made me angry, it would've made me angry, but that's more just an observation of how I felt. Do you agree?

6:39Oti: No, I agree. I do agree with that.

6:42KT: Okay. Well, let's get into romcom rankings. Where does this sit for you? Do you regard this—not that you have to or don't have to regard this as a Black romcom—like, how does this offering into the tapestry of world romcoms, cinema romcoms, where does this sit for you?

7:04Oti: Oh, what a question. It sits—while it didn't leave a dent for me personally in sort of the tapestry of romcom movies that I've grown up watching and I will remember for a time—

7:23KT: Mm-hmm.

7:23Oti: It was good to sort of get a feel-good movie when everything else is happening and just getting lost, and Halle and Regé really did well in this. But I don't think I can strongly say that, oh wow, this is right up there with some of the best I've seen.

7:47KT: Because the film in and of itself, because how you felt about it, or because it divided its time? 'Cause it wasn't full romcom, I would say. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, it was just general vibes.

7:59Oti: That, general vibes, and I guess some sort of tropes that they leaned into that I expected not to see in such a movie, considering the director.

8:11KT: Are we nibbling around the edges or are we getting into it now?

8:14Oti: No, we can talk about sort of the generic stuff of it first rather than go into it, so it's not taking away from what the movie was.

8:23KT: Okay.

8:23Oti: Yeah.

8:25KT: So, like, you mentioned Love Jones. I mentioned Last Holiday. It's interesting because in my head this was a full-blown romcom. You know, friends and lovers, we talk about how, you know, there are different sort of crowds and invitations. I wasn't sure—I don't necessarily think the screening we went to was like an influencer screening, 'cause you know, we've seen different types of screenings and audiences. I wonder if the audience was like a Bridgerton group.

8:56Oti: Bridgerton group.

8:57KT: You know what I mean? Like, I don't think the people I've seen are the same influencer people that I've seen. Yeah. So I'm trying to wonder how they're marketing this, 'cause to me, I thought this was a whole romcom. But it was more than that when the film started. It was giving me vibes of Last Holiday. And you know me, friends and lovers, it doesn't even matter whether we were in whispers to even potentially be in a press junket; I just enjoy watching press junkets and interviews and that sort of thing. And in one of them, Regé-Jean Page answered a question about Halle's first credit—she wasn't necessarily credited, but this is how deep his lore for her was—she was in a photo in the photo album of Queen Latifah's Last Holiday.

9:43Oti: Really?

9:44KT: Yes. Not in conjunction with that, that's just an interesting thing to add to the conversation. When we first were introduced to Anna, she was trying to get her life together. She was not satisfied with her life, and that's also in romcoms as well. But I was like, oh my God, are we getting another Last Holiday? Is this a Last Holiday? 'Cause friends and lovers, we know how much I love Queen Latifah. I did a collab, and I think it was like a two-hour collab where we were loving on Queen Latifah, I was hating on Common in Just Wright. I really thought we were gonna get into—and there's grief and we'll touch on that—but there was so much just in regards to Anna's character before Michael even came along, and I was like, oh my God, are we going to get a fulfillment as a woman? Like, and maybe there is time to explore love in this world, but even just finding herself and finding value in herself, right? Because I think a lot of it was people were finding value in her, which is nice. But anyway, so I was like, oh, maybe we're getting that. And then there was so much about the family, which I'm like, cool, but you know, I was coming to air out my petticoat in the cinema, you know? So I don't know. I don't know if I will wholly call this a romcom, even though I wrote romcom rankings. I just kind of wanted to know where this sat. I felt good watching it, and I loved watching it, but like, say for example, I don't think I would even call Last Holiday a romcom. Then like Bridget Jones

11:20Oti: Mm.

11:21KT: As a romcom. I don't know if you thought much of it, but there was like a tussle—'cause this isn't a big thing, and I wanna make sure I say it before I forget—but there was like a tussling-around fight scene near the end of this film that reminded me of Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones 2, I'm pretty sure, where Hugh Grant and Colin Firth's characters are fighting in like a Greek restaurant.

11:40Oti: Yeah.

11:41KT: I don't know. I'm very deep in romcom lore, so it might just be my brain wired that way.

11:46Oti: So

11:47KT: Rye Lane, Rye Lane. It's romantic. Yeah, ain't nothing funny about the Lawrence of a man. The Lawrence of a man, what's his name? David?

11:58Oti: Yeah, the Lawrence of a man. Wow. So you feel the family took way too much attention and focus from Anna and the potential sort of relationship with Regé, with Michael?

12:17KT: Yeah, because we're just talking about formulating what the genre is, right? Because what romcoms—like, I've seen 27 Dresses. Have you seen that?

12:26Oti: Yeah.

12:27KT: I've seen How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, and a lot of them are like women crossing their arms being like, "Hmph," you know? So I don't even think me saying that You, Me & Tuscany—I don't think it's wholly a romcom because

12:44Oti: So something

12:44KT: Like some romcoms are a bit

12:46Oti: You mentioned You've Got Mail. You've Got Mail, I think the focus is always—

12:50KT: Yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry. I was getting very excited.

12:52Oti: No, go for it.

12:52KT: I just wanted to say in my head, I really loved You've Got Mail, and then we recently watched it and we covered it on the podcast, and I was like, Tom Hanks is a fucking dickhead. I was like, how? Or maybe since watching it the first time, we developed a beautiful love and I'm like, ah, that's not what a man in love looks like. Because he was so slimy with his Fox Books publishing and, you know, all of that. And I'm like, go away, leave her alone.

13:19Oti: Because I don't think we get to—

13:21KT: Because you've watched Notting Hill.

13:22Oti: Yeah.

13:23KT: You've watched Pretty Woman.

13:24Oti: Mm.

13:25KT: So you've watched your fair share of romcoms.

13:27Oti: Yeah.

13:28KT: But they always feel a bit like—and I guess because, you know, it doesn't really matter how we classify it, and it kind of goes into my next theme anyway. Do romcoms have to be plausible? Because one of the things I would say to just finish off the romcom rankings is I feel like so much has to happen in a very particular way. It's like a domino, right? Like things have to be lined up so perfectly and you have to suspend so much disbelief for a romcom to work. And for me, sometimes that means that romcoms don't have a lot of dimension to them outside of "I need to be with this man," 'cause usually it's like, you know, very straight woman to a man, right? So do romcoms have to be plausible? Like for example, when we said—spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, friends and lovers—Anna's mom passes away, and that's where she gets her passion for cooking, right? Yeah. And this is where I'm talking about the plausibility, and also it doesn't matter, right? Her mom and her had planned to go to Italy, or I think even Tuscany specifically. So the tickets, the money for the tickets had already been—I don't know if the tickets were booked, but it was already taken care of, whether the tickets were booked or the money was there for the tickets, so that was taken care of. And then she meets Matteo, and we'll get into the hijinks of that. But it so happens that she doesn't need to worry about a place to stay, so the ticket is booked, make your way there, you'll have somewhere to live. Even all of that, there's a lot that had to happen in this domino of plausibility. Does it matter to you?

15:09Oti: No. I think it's understandable to know that you've already got a ticket, you can go. The only thing she didn't want to do was book ahead of time, despite what Claire told her to do. So her getting to Italy and realizing, oh, there's an event, everywhere is fully booked, I'm screwed.

15:32KT: Yeah.

15:32Oti: I think that's plausible.

15:33KT: No, no, no. I'm saying do romcoms have to be plausible and does it matter? 'Cause to me it doesn't matter, right? Because if you think about Last Holiday—well, that was a bit more grounded—but say for example with Last Holiday, you know, Queen Latifah's character was diagnosed with cancer, and that is literally why, 'cause she was always scared to live her own life, right? She would try these recipes, but she'd never really travel to these places. She would make collages—and who wouldn't make a photo album, sorry, my love, who wouldn't make a photo album with their face and LL Cool J's face as well, you know? But she wasn't really living a full life, and by getting that cancer diagnosis, which we find out later is bogus—at the time, because of capitalism, because the machinery didn't work—but anyway, that is what propelled her to start living her life, right? So to me, I'm not even saying that they have to be plausible. I'm not even saying that romcoms have to be grounded in, you know, where did she get the money, et cetera, et cetera. I'm just saying to you as a viewer, 'cause I'm saying it doesn't matter. I didn't care about the—

16:44Oti: Oh, yeah, it doesn't matter. I think watching through this, there's no point where I was like, ooh, actually, how did she. No.

16:52KT: Right.

16:52Oti: No, I was fully locked into it. There's nothing weird enough for me to pull me out of the movie feeling as if it was unbelievable.

17:02KT: And that's why you were fighting all those House of the Dragon fans about Corlys having all his money, right?

17:13Oti: You know how he got his money.

17:16KT: So let's talk about our leads, my love, Halle, and then we'll come to Regé. I love her, like I love her so much. She's literal sunshine. Like, you know how you see people and they're nice, and—I need to stop quoting the mom from Parasite—but like, of course they're nice, they have the choice to be nice. I just really love seeing her on screen. She was great. The Little Mermaid was whatever as a film, but her as The Little Mermaid, as Ariel, and singing and being able to experience that in the cinema—Javier Bardem be fucking around the world with all those different daughters—but her as a presence, as an energy on the big screen, I just don't know how you don't fall in love with Halle. And I sound like Regé-Jean Page in the press junket, but she's just so lovely and beautiful, and she looks so beautiful. Can we just say there was no moment in this film where she didn't look great, well rested, well hydrated? She never looked busted. Like, she just looked great. I just loved how much the screen and my eyes also loved her as well. What I would propose as a potential—just my thoughts and feelings—is I don't know if it's necessarily Halle's performance or the way Anna was written, even though her life was very turbulent, she didn't seem like she needed anyone. Does that make sense? I don't wanna be "she don't need no man" trope, but you know what I mean? Like, I feel like her cooking was more interesting than her love story.

19:05Oti: Yeah, it felt like she stumbled into love when that was not her full focus on, "Oh, I need a man."

19:12KT: If she had traveled to Italy, found that family, and started cooking in that restaurant, I think that's quite a fulfilling storyline.

19:18Oti: Yeah.

19:20KT: And I think, friends and lovers, we have watched the manosphere documentary, so I don't know if you ever wanna hear our thoughts on that, but I think that speaks to a bigger—and that's not even a problem, it's literally just a situation. There are a lot of women that are happy, self-sufficient, that pretty much take care of their own needs, and the men aren't offering anything. And I don't know if that is a smart commentary that that's what this is. Again, I understand that Anna didn't have her life together, but it seemed like a man in the mix was like throwing the turtle shell in the Super Mario Kart game. Like, it wasn't a mushroom to level her up, it was just getting in her way. And it's not to say that women don't need men, but it's like, what can you provide in this instance of Anna? Do you understand what I'm saying?

20:22Oti: I understand what you're saying, but isn't this then the best portrayal of it, where it's not that she is desperate, crying, "Why am I alone? Why am I sad?"

20:31KT: Which I love, yes. But also she can be that if she wants to.

20:34Oti: Yeah. It's, "Oh, it just happens." We had a connection with this guy who I hated at first, but—

20:41KT: What, Pride and Prejudice?

20:42Oti: Yeah, he became a brother I looked into.

20:46KT: Wow. Wow. But I hope my point is understood because we're gonna get into the romancing parts and I'm very excited to talk about that. But I just wanna lay that out that I don't know if it's just Halle's performance, which was a great performance, or if it was the way she was written. I don't think Anna—again, she could have had a very fulfilling time within the story of the film if she just pursued her passion of cooking, right? So just keep that, 'cause once we start getting into detail, I hope that helps frame it. Now let's talk about Regé-Jean Page as Michael.

21:24Oti: Mm-hmm.

21:24KT: You've heard what I've had to say. I'm gonna say what I have to say for our friends and lovers, but you are welcome to share your thoughts first on him as a lead.

21:34Oti: I think he did quite well in this, and I know you might have an opposing opinion to that. I thought he did quite well. I felt even when we got introduced to him, he felt like he was lost in the movie up until Halle came across, up until Anna came.

21:55KT: 'Cause he's on the poster, so we're like, where is he?

21:58Oti: No, as in more lost in terms of he just felt—

22:04KT: Underutilized?

22:06Oti: Even underutilized, he felt as if he wasn't complete. There was something missing and he didn't understand. And he was brought into this family because he lost his parents, and you could tell it took a toll, and he has not really formed connections outside of him just focusing on his work, because he said, "Oh, I just need to get lost and not think about anything and then just do my work, bam, bam, bam." But there's a bigger gap there where it's like, of course you're gonna get lost in your work. You are here in Italy with this family who love you and a brother who thinks you're not really part of the family anyway.

22:48KT: Well

22:48Oti: Mm. And you know that's not the first time he's said it as well.

22:53KT: Oh, absolutely.

22:55Oti: So, I don't know, I bought into his character and the motivations of him feeling as if, oh, I also happen to sort of fall in love with Anna, and why does my brother get to have everything?

23:12KT: His toys in the pram.

23:13Oti: Mm-hmm.

23:15KT: Okay. So what I will say—and let's make it clear, I really loved this film, but we are here to review and get into the details and maybe kancho someone's ass cheek while we're along the way. Friends and lovers, Regé-Jean Page: first introduction to him was Chicken George in Roots. For the People, was it?

23:39Oti: Mm.

23:39KT: There was a lawyer show we saw him on, very arrogant fella character. Never really watched Bridgerton, I think we watched like a couple of episodes of Bridgerton. I just think that the best and the lightest way to describe how I feel about Regé-Jean Page is—friends and lovers, I make 30 Rock references all the time—Jon Hamm, Jon Hamm's character in 30 Rock. Like when Calvin Klein approached him on the street, him as a character, like the world just falls to his feet, right? And he says he speaks French, but he doesn't—was it French?

24:22Oti: Yeah.

24:22KT: In 30 Rock. And all of the subtitles were all jumbled shit 'cause he didn't know how to speak French, and who was gonna tell his handsome face? Yeah, who was ever gonna tell him that he didn't know how to speak French? So Regé-Jean Page is very similar to me. Not that I think he's superficial or he only has one layer to him, but I do hope in life and also on screen that he does actually get to experience love in that way. And the same with Michael as well, because Michael's character, like you said, even you said he felt a bit incomplete. He was very much there just to be dutiful, right? He was there to fill a role, and it kind of felt that way. Like, friends and lovers, I've kind of went more into like K-drama or romance books, et cetera, et cetera, and there's usually like a trope of a man that will marry you out of duty because he feels like he has to take care of you, or maybe it's a rich family and their family treated your family badly and as collateral he decides to marry, or the family decides to marry him off to you, and he does it because he has to, right? But does he actually love you?

25:38Oti: Mm-hmm.

25:39KT: And that was part of—and again, the same thing, I don't know if it's just Regé's or perceived upon him. I don't think he wants to project a perfection persona, but it's been imposed on him that he needs to be this perfect, handsome fella, or is it because of Michael's character and the way he was written? I'm not necessarily sure. But yeah, so in that case, if I am surmising my general thoughts and feelings in regards to the leads in this film: there's a very beautiful, gorgeous, she ain't got it together, and none of us got it together lead that is really not allowing herself to feel her passion because her passion connects her to her mom who has passed away. So whether a man is there or not, that's not part of the journey in my opinion. And then you have Michael, who has only ever known to do what he had to do at the disgruntlement of a brother that never really accepted him as a brother. And then it kind of felt like, if this film was done in a way that was really frustrating, it could be really easy for it to feel like Michael was just sliding in to get in Matteo's way, right? I don't think it was done that way. I think it was acted very well and it felt like they were connecting together. I don't think that was at fault, but does that make sense to you?

27:04Oti: No, it makes sense. It makes sense.

27:07KT: It was all great performances. I do wanna get your thoughts on something, my love. I don't wanna spend too much time on it, but I feel like I do need to at least bring it up here. I haven't read a lot of the pull quotes, I haven't read a lot of stuff unless it's been coming from Black critics and journalists or even just movie lovers, I've not been paying attention, but there was a white critic saying, "How are there two Black—or I think they said POC—like, how do they both end up in a small town in Italy?" Do you have any thoughts? Would you like to respond to that?

27:42Oti: We know how Anna ends up there.

27:46KT: Yeah. Sorry, I think the specific critique is it wasn't explained in the film.

27:52Oti: It was explained.

27:53KT: Yeah.

27:53Oti: You explained Anna being there because she met Matteo, Matteo told her about this place that's abandoned—

28:02KT: Yeah.

28:03Oti: And Michael was adopted.

28:07KT: Yeah.

28:07Oti: How hard, how difficult, how else does it need to be? And there are Black Italians as well, fam.

28:14KT: Yeah.

28:15Oti: Okay.

28:16KT: Maybe Lupin might—there might be a version of—

28:19Oti: Maybe he expected Lupin to be in disguise somewhere there.

28:24KT: I think it's annoying.

28:26Oti: At this point, what are we doing?

28:28KT: And also there are so many fucking films that have white people randomly with no business being somewhere.

28:34Oti: Mm-hmm.

28:35KT: And obviously this was explained, so that's not even the same scenario. Like, shout-outs to Jordan and Kendrick, they have White People Won't Save You, they have a whole spreadsheet of films that they're going through that have random white people in Asia, random white people in Africa—like, we're not doing this. I just wanted to put that there, I didn't want it to be a full discussion. I wanna talk about the family element. How did you feel about the family element in You, Me & Tuscany?

29:01Oti: It did take up quite too much space in the movie for—

29:06KT: It was like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, right?

29:09Oti: Exactly—oh my God, I have not thought about that movie in ages.

29:12KT: Yes! Actually, it wasn't until we started talking—

29:15Oti: Yes, it felt—

29:16KT: I feel like that lady was in the film, wasn't she? The main one?

29:19Oti: Was she?

29:20KT: Yeah, she's the rich lady that she was wearing her clothes. Yeah, Nia Vardalos!

29:25Oti: Oh, okay. Nice. Look at you, movie critic.

29:32KT: Oh, she's 63. Congratulations. Wow.

29:35Oti: Mm.

29:37KT: Yeah, it wasn't until we started doing this review, I was like, actually—

29:41Oti: It does feel a bit like that.

29:44KT: And I guess thinking now, My Big Fat Greek Wedding makes sense 'cause you would marry the whole Greek family, and I guess you would marry the Italian family too. But in my head, I thought this was a romcom, so when the family kept butting in—not butting in, like when they kept getting scenes—I was like

30:02Oti: You know what didn't feel plausible a little bit? Okay.

30:08KT: Okay.

30:09Oti: Was after the whole drama of Anna telling the truth of how everything went down—

30:14KT: The ring. Yeah.

30:16Oti: The immediate sort of resolution to that felt way too quick.

30:22KT: Yeah, because romcom.

30:24Oti: Because romcom. Without any struggle outside of Halle waiting in the station for like an hour—

30:33KT: Yeah.

30:34Oti: Or less. I was like, I don't know if it would've happened that quickly.

30:39KT: Yeah.

30:40Oti: And to have also Matteo go there and convince her to go back to—

30:45KT: The Matteo part was very not plausible.

30:47Oti: I was like—

30:47KT: Yeah.

30:48Oti: Why is Matteo there and why is he telling you to go back to Michael?

30:51KT: Like, let him stew away somewhere. You've been acting playboy as soon as you got back. Like, no, because that cheapens it.

31:00Oti: It really cheapens it. This is the guy that was fighting Michael just a few hours ago.

31:04KT: Yeah.

31:05Oti: They're punching each other, literally.

31:07KT: Yeah.

31:08Oti: Him saying, "You are not even part of this family."

31:10KT: Yeah.

31:11Oti: And now he's here: "Oh, I want Michael to be happy. You go."

31:14KT: In what world?

31:16Oti: Mm.

31:16KT: Like, I know family bury a lot of shit, but come on now. Speaking of who should be buried, that fucking grandma—that's the face of racisms right there. Why are you so suspicious every time? She's Robert De Niro in any—

31:29Oti: Apparently she was only suspicious because she knew she was more suited to be with Michael than with Matteo.

31:36KT: Don't you feel that has racial implications?

31:38Oti: Yep.

31:38KT: Same-same stick together.

31:40Oti: "You are not good enough for my actual grandbaby."

31:44KT: Right! And it's like, I don't wanna say the grandma is like The Shining and you'll find her in historic photographs that she shouldn't be in, but I'm like, woman! Because everyone was so free-flowing and loving. Aha, that's where they concentrated the racisms, into this raisin of a woman.

32:02Oti: No, they do say it wasn't racism, it was just like she just thought there was something with her, and it was—

32:10KT: Ah, you mean like Harry Potter and the new Snape?

32:13Oti: Exactly.

32:14KT: Like, "I don't know what it is, I don't trust this dark-ass teacher." Like, I don't know, it could be anything, it could be any teacher.

32:26Oti: It could be anything, yeah.

32:27KT: It just happens to be Professor Snape.

32:31Oti: I cannot wait for that series.

32:34KT: That grandma, I was like, mm. Because we're so free-flowing and wearing our vacation clothes, and then she just shows up in the background with the Nosferatu eyes, you know? Like, take your Nosferatu somewhere else, we don't wanna see you. Yeah, I don't necessarily think it was a bad thing. Maybe it's my fault for having expectations that we were just gonna fall in love. Maybe the feelings I was feeling about—not necessarily Anna, but about Michael's character and the way that he felt so dutiful, and he was kind of like Prince Charming that sweeps you off your feet, like it just felt like he didn't want her to end up with Matteo 'cause he knows Matteo's a shit cunt.

33:15Oti: Mm.

33:16KT: So he was like, "I'll take ya. I'll take you with me in my little truck because you are wet, I can't put you in my nice car."

33:24Oti: Mm-hmm.

33:25KT: So I just—maybe if they removed a bit of the family scenes and deepened the romance, maybe I wouldn't be saying what I'm saying.

33:32Oti: Get them to have actual moments together outside of—yeah.

33:37KT: Bro, we're frolicking in the vineyard! Why do I have to go and peel potatoes with your gran, you know? Grief, bro. There were some moments that I was feeling emotional in this film, and I know I'm a very sad-movie-loving person, and I really wish they leaned into that a little bit.

33:58Oti: Well, no one really knows how to deal with grief and it affects them, and the resolution, I think, from Anna's point of view is, "Oh, I'm not going to be afraid anymore to cook and I'm gonna lean into it." Even doing that, it was more her getting forced to do it or feeling as if there was a pressure on her to do it because the dad, Vincenzo, was like, "Oh..."

34:25KT: Well, that is classic romcom, so again, for me that plausibility is fine.

34:29Oti: For Michael's case, I don't think he dealt with whatever it is he has, because man dem still seems like he's gotta still do a million things there, you know?

34:39KT: You know. It's very interesting 'cause there were some one-liners in this film where it could have come off very cringey or rolling your eyes—I say cheesy in a positive way, even corny in a positive way—and there was a line that Michael said when they were getting to know each other: "Oh my God, that bruschetta! This is the best thing I've ever eaten." Calm down, sir, just say you wanna get into her panties, come on. And she said, "It's chopping."

35:09Oti: Those tomatoes was hard.

35:14KT: And even the fact that it was noted that she wasn't cooking because she still was tentative to jump in, right?

35:23Oti: Mm-hmm.

35:24KT: That was very poetic and very lovely. And there was a moment that he said, "You ran away, I ran into it."

35:33Oti: Yeah.

35:33KT: And I was like, "Ooh!" As someone that leaned into responsibility and duty when shit got hard, I resonated with that shit so much. So maybe you are the one, my love. You are the romantic lover and I'm the one that needed to be softened.

35:50Oti: Yeah, tell me about it.

35:54KT: Wow. Oh, let us know how your screenplay's going, my love. I wanna talk about the soundtrack. I wanna say, friends and lovers, studios, if you're listening: sometimes I need to try and low-key Shazam the songs just so I can get a feel of the film later. I did not need to Shazam the songs in this film.

36:18Oti: Why is that?

36:22KT: We had my muse, Leon Thomas. We had "Soft Girl Era", Ari Lennox. We had "Lightwork". Oti, I love a montage.

36:32Oti: Mm.

36:32KT: And it's a montage where they're deepening their connection and falling in love. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, and it's Aminé! It's cool to have Leon Thomas and Ari Lennox on a major studio romcom soundtrack, and Aminé, that's so cool. Olivia Dean was in there. Estelle was in there near the end. Like, a soundtrack can make a romcom or a romantic film. How did you feel about the soundtrack? Were you enjoying it?

37:01Oti: I loved it. Yeah, it was good knowing every other song playing.

37:08KT: You're like, "This is for me."

37:13Oti: Oh, you skipped your biggest one, your favorite artist, Mario.

37:18KT: Oh my God, yeah, sorry. Okay. Well, I guess unless you have any other bigger things, I think we can end on this. Yeah?

37:24Oti: Mm.

37:26KT: Friends and lovers, I don't even remember 'cause it wasn't relevant to anything, I definitely mentioned the Mario versus Omarion Verzuz, definitely on socials and absolutely on this podcast. Oti, you'll pay penance for the rest of your life 'cause you were dead wrong. In no world, under no Tuscan sun, will Omarion ever be able to out-sing Mario, point blank period.

37:50Oti: Out-sing Mario.

37:51KT: Maybe Regé-Jean Page has a chance if he sings next to Omarion.

37:54Oti: I just thought Omarion had better hits than Mario, a bigger catalog than Mario.

38:04KT: It doesn't matter.

38:04Oti: And apparently it did not matter at all.

38:07KT: It doesn't matter, you're still wrong.

38:09Oti: Couldn't sing for shit. Jesus.

38:11KT: Now—

38:12Oti: Alright.

38:13KT: When it comes to Michael—'cause again, plausibility doesn't matter, because that was a very ridiculous scenario to get what we got in that scene, right?

38:21Oti: Yeah.

38:21KT: So to me, romcoms, plausibility does not matter to me. And we do have a moment, and we said spoiler, and I'm sure people will talk about it all the time. Even before we had that moment—

38:35Oti: Mm-hmm.

38:35KT: We had our equivalent—remember, friends and lovers, in the US Office where they had the branches merging, and then that guy was bumping his fist to Stanley being like, "I see you, bro," and then Stanley was rolling his eyes? We had that moment in this film because Michael, for some reason, with some bravado, had to prove himself. And when they got in the car, what song did he start playing?

39:04Oti: "Let Me Love You".

39:05KT: Because I feel like we're in the 2020s in this film. This film is set in the 2020s.

39:09Oti: Yeah.

39:10KT: So he's really trying to bring this nostalgia, like, "I know what I'm talking about."

39:16Oti: Mm-hmm. "I'm deep in the R&Bs."

39:19KT: I'm not saying it's cringe. How did you feel about it? Felt a bit on the nose.

39:22Oti: It didn't feel on the nose—the car scene did feel a bit on the nose, and him singing it at the vineyard was nice. It started off rough, and it got better on the high notes.

39:36KT: That's what I'm saying! I thought—and you know, I'm sure maybe his fans, I doubt Regé-Jean Page is listening to this—when he started singing, I was like, "Oh, this is nice, they're showing us this handsome man can't do everything."

39:52Oti: Ah. Ah.

39:54KT: And then you tried to tell me that, "No, no, no, he was singing," and I was like, okay. And I think it was nice that they didn't have Halle singing in the same scene 'cause that would've been very, very embarrassing. Yeah, Mario, "Let Me Love You". I love—obviously I love Mario, and in the context of the film, I was like, it felt so on the nose to me, and I'm a big, big fan of "Let Me Love You" specifically.

40:25Oti: Yeah, very much.

40:26KT: You mentioned casting. Was there anything you wanted to touch on that? 'Cause I'm pretty much floating on a love cloud right now. Is there anything you wanted to talk about in regards to that? I'm assuming you mean tropes.

40:37Oti: When it comes to the best friend that's Black and they're the stereotypical sort of loud, super, you know, like—

40:54KT: Expressive.

40:55Oti: Super expressive, and you're like, okay, nothing wrong with that, I just did not expect a movie like this to have that.

41:06KT: What do you mean, "a movie like this"? This is Universal.

41:08Oti: It's Universal, and it's being directed by—

41:13KT: A white lady.

41:16Oti: It was being produced by Will Packer.

41:18KT: Okay.

41:20Oti: It has two Black leads. I just didn't expect—I think it was a shock to the system because the Black best friend in all the other movies that you'd watch are exactly that: they're loud, they're expressive. And I just thought, oh, why couldn't Halle be—

41:42KT: It's incongruent.

41:43Oti: Why couldn't Halle be loud and expressive?

41:45KT: She's like the Key & Peele sketch, she's like Luther to Barack Obama, right?

41:50Oti: Yeah.

41:50KT: Like she's expressing what Halle feels, and for whatever reason, Halle has to be composed and not—

41:56Oti: "Oh, I'll say it like this, I'll talk like this." It felt very—

42:02KT: It's fine if that's how she is, it's the positioning of it, right? Yeah.

42:05Oti: It's how it's sort of positioned. It was like, okay, this is a bit weird because every time the friend will talk, it'll be loud and expressive, and it's like, cool, she's the only one in this movie that's like that.

42:18KT: You mean because it's not just a Black film, is that what you're saying? Yeah. Like say for example in Get Out, Lil Rel was great and he was just being Lil Rel, he wasn't that stereotypical loud, expressive Black best friend.

42:30Oti: Yeah.

42:31KT: It's the context, right?

42:32Oti: It's like any other—pick whatever movie out there that has a white lead and a best friend that's Black, Gabrielle Union—exactly this. And I'm like, okay, nothing in the world is fucking wrong with that, when we have two Black people as leads and none of them are like that—

43:01KT: They have to be composed.

43:02Oti: Why? Why can't they be expressive? Why can't they be—

43:06KT: Too loud, too reckless.

43:09Oti: Yeah. And the only time she would say it was like, bro, it was on a text.

43:16KT: Yeah. No, and also, my love, remember when we recorded Bait and I talked about visual representation? By having two Black leads, you were held in the embrace that this was gonna be your lens, and it wasn't, because it's for the world. And in context of it not being a quintessential Black story, Black film, then the Black characters become tropey, or can become tropey.

43:42Oti: I didn't know that it wasn't written by a Black person.

43:45KT: My love, and friends and lovers, while we've been reviewing this, Oti has slowly been checking the names.

43:55Oti: I did not—

43:56KT: Does it answer your question? That was me in the—

43:59Oti: I didn't know Ryan Engle was not

44:02KT: Ryan Engle and Kristin—yeah, I guess they're husband and wife potentially. This is how I felt in The Woman King, and that's why I told you, friends and lovers, we should always have the writers and directors on the bottom of your screen while you are watching something, because I was like, what is this framing? The framing in The Woman King—like, obviously I love Viola Davis, and friends and lovers, let's be mature and put our big-boy pants on and have some layers and complexity—the way that they framed The Woman King was wild, right? I don't think it necessarily is the same framing here, and it can't just be two beautiful Black people in love because it's them in context of a Western world. So then when they have a Black best friend, she becomes that, right? She doesn't get to just be Lil Rel in Get Out, right, because it's just a part of the story, he just is that way. And then the best friend is that way as a way to shade in the dimension for what Anna can or can't say. And you can only imagine it has to do with studio stuff, 'cause let's be real.

45:12Oti: I guess I just think it took me out of the movie a little bit because I was like, oh, damn.

45:18KT: It was jarring.

45:18Oti: I was like, oh, okay, we are doing this, so when is Halle gonna start talking her shit?

45:26KT: Yeah, when is she gonna tell them how she really feels?

45:29Oti: Yeah, she doesn't. And I don't even think I expected anything from Regé because, you know

45:38KT: Yeah.

45:39Oti: Damn, man.

45:40KT: What do you mean? He's down for the cause, he was playing "Let Me Love You".

45:43Oti: No, he's in Italy, he is not part—

45:46KT: He is down with it, he's playing "Let Me Love You", he knows about it.

45:49Oti: Yeah, I don't know, I just—yeah, it was weird. It was weird.

45:53KT: You wanted him to start playing Adele instead or what?

45:57Oti: That was one of the qualms I had with this movie.

46:00KT: No, I get that, and I would also say hands make this, that's all. And if you don't want to go into that, that's fine, it's not AI, so people are making this. So I am just noting who the people are, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that because that's the lens at the end of the day, isn't it?

46:20Oti: Yeah.

46:21KT: Ooh. Shout-outs to Aziza Scott. Ooh. Thank you, friends and lovers, for joining us another week in the For Your Reference household. We hope you can find love in context of jarring tropes, and we hope you can find love in all representations of all dimensions. We're gonna finish off in a segment we call For Your Reference. Oti?

46:46Oti: Oh, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I can't believe I didn't see it until you said it. It's exactly that.

46:53KT: I've got Last Holiday, baby.

46:56Oti: Mm-hmm.

46:57KT: On Twitter and Instagram, we're @ForYourRefPod.

47:00Oti: Write us at hello@fyrpodcast.com.

47:03KT: We're also on Get Oti to Release His Screenplay, I'm Sure I'll Come Off as the Villain Podcasts if you'd like to leave a rating and review, and we'll see you guys next week.

47:11Oti: See ya.

47:12KT: Bye.