Anescape,not a failure

• Published date: 07 February 2023
• Publication title: Signal

THE number one movie on Netflix, You People, has mainstream critics cringing and Black Twitter talking back to the screen. The takeaway: they’re not buying any of it — not the culture clash, not the casting and definitely not the chemistry between the two romantic leads

More reinterpretation than remake of the 1967 classic Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, You People — Black-ish creator Kenya Barris’s feature film directing debut — is a typical romcom by the numbers. But instead of two basic white people playing the ‘‘will they, won’t they’’ game, writer Jonah Hill is Ezra, a white Jewish man trying to make it work with a Black Muslim woman called Amira, played by Lauren London, in spite of their hidebound families.

And I liked it! — contrary to what seems like everyone else who watched it. It was fun, fast-paced and full of well-timed cameos I never saw coming — not least Mike Epps playing Eddie Murphy’s younger brother. You People was dismissed by Black Twitter early on, starting when it was first announced in summer 2021 as...