Regé-Jean Page Is Finally Where He Belongs

I think it’s great that theaters make room not just for the event films, the superhero movies, the horror flicks, and the action adventures, but also for the occasional simple, old-fashioned romantic comedy. But good god, man: I have never seen anything in a theater that screams Netflix thumbnail louder than You, Me & Tuscany. If I’m paying multiplex prices, I have come to expect a certain return on my investment. You, Me & Tuscany is fluff. It’s not even good fluff. It is all fondant, no cake. Mostly, though, it’s just … inconsequential.

I don’t really understand how Halle Bailey went from live-action Little Mermaid to The Color Purple to this, but bless. Regé-Jean Page, on the other hand, has probably belonged here since his dashing good looks elevated him from Bridgerton to brief consideration as the next Bond (though he’s perfectly cast in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and I will not be taking questions). Lifetime movie stud is decidedly Regé-Jean Page’s lane, which also makes him well cast in You, Me & Tuscany — though that’s a bit like saying Adam Sandler is well cast in Jack & Jill. It’s not a compliment so much as a statement of fact.

Halle Bailey plays Anna, a professional housesitter living in other people’s lives, who meets a good-looking Italian man, Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor), has a one-night stand with him, and gets talked into following her dreams and vacationing in Italy. Anna had been in cooking school with her eyes set on learning the trade abroad when her mother got sick and died, derailing her entire life plan.

So Anna hops on a plane with a suitcase and very little money, travels to a small Italian villa, and discovers there’s a festival in town and all the hotels are booked. She does what anyone might do in her position: breaks into the empty home of Matteo, the man she met back in the States, and when Matteo’s mother and Nonna stop by to check on the house, Anna pretends to be his fiancée to avoid the police.

The lie snowballs. Before she knows it, Anna is being swept into family gatherings, where she meets Michael (Regé-Jean Page), Matteo’s cousin, who runs a vineyard. She falls for him; he falls for her; Matteo returns and decides to keep the engagement charade going to appease his family; and suddenly Anna is pretending to be engaged to one man while falling in love with another.

Anyone who has ever seen a Disney Channel sitcom can guess exactly where You, Me & Tuscany is going — though the movie is probably not as well written or as sophisticated as the Disney show. It’s bad. It’s a poorly written live-action fairy tale with less edge than a carton of eggs. My teenage daughters dragged me to this one — out of love for Halle Bailey — and even they were beyond bored, which is notable given that they were presumably the target demographic.

I don’t mind a decent background viewing experience, but the multiplex doesn’t accommodate multitasking. If this were on Netflix, I’d at least be getting some laundry done. Instead, they put it on a 60-foot screen and gave me nowhere else to look. Badly delivered wordplay hits different when there’s no escape. This movie should come with a next button. It should not be projected onto a surface the size of a small building.

It doesn’t matter how lovely Bailey and Page look, or how beautiful the Tuscan backdrop is. The night sky is beautiful, too, but the stars don’t deliver bad lines or lack chemistry with each other. I almost feel bad calling You, Me & Tuscany trash, because it aspires to so little — but even in that, it falls woefully short.