Does a girl pick the British man who owns an Italian vineyard? Or the Italian man who travels the world and makes a fortune? And happens to own a villa next to that vineyard. And happens to be the “cousin-brother” of the one with that vineyard. Classic rom-com—girl meets boy, meets brother of boy, with a fib or two—“You, Me & Tuscany” (Universal), showing now at the Montrose Playhouse, leaves cliché behind with a super-likeable star, well-acted minor parts, and dreamy locations.
We meet Anna, played by Halle Bailey, whose job is housesitting for rich New Yorkers, just before she is sacked for wearing a client’s clothes (plus her lingerie). During a one-night stand, Matteo, the rich Italian one, boasts that he has a “fairy-tale” villa. Anna flies to Tuscany, finds an engagement ring in a drawer, and tells his family that she is his fiancée. Friend-back-home Claire, played by Aziza Scott, thinks she’s crazy. Matteo’s large family run a restaurant. They are thrilled. Michael, the British one with the vineyard, fancies Anna but doesn’t think she is free. “At least it can’t get any worse!” Matteo returns to Tuscany to find Anna in his villa and wearing the ring he bought for someone else.
The film doesn’t get bogged down by its own self-importance. After Michael and Anna drink several bottles of wine, they sober-up enough for him to chase her through the just-so rows of vines. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” she says. “I need to eat a grape!” Then he drives her back to the villa. A slip as serious as this would sink a more seriously minded movie—but continuity flaws aren’t fatal to the rom-com. The drunken running is only an excuse for Michael to shuck off his shirt to display his low-carb torso to ogling American women on a “Happy Tuscany” tour bus which just happens to be passing.
Matteo’s happy, funny, fizzy family pop up all over the movie. “You are the key to bringing our family together,” Mama says. “We are so happy you are here.” Aunty Federica confides in Anna, making saucy comments about the plumber, and winking. She believes having an affair to be the key to a long-lasting marriage. It’s “Carry On” campy. Little-brother Enzo is addicted to his smartphone. He live-broadcasts his life to his Instagram followers. “He only has three,” Federica tells Anna. When Matteo and Michael look like they are going to knock each other’s heads off, Enzo puts up his fists like a prizefighter. The audience judges that he wouldn’t last three seconds. Giuseppe, Matteo’s portly neighbour, throws his head back and hollers the same song from the opera “La Traviata” every morning, as if he’s a human cockerel on rise-and-shine duty.
“You, Me & Tuscany” reverses the normal Hollywood casting of the plummy Brit as the old-money-rich one and the laidback Italian as the hands-in-the-dirt one. The audience comes away without much to disprove the general opinion round the place that we stiff Brits compare badly with those fun Italians. Regé-Jean Page, as Michael, seems sulky and pouty and bad-natured at times. When he chooses some music, Anna seems surprised. “I thought you were more of a podcast kind of guy,” she says. “So…boring?” he asks. He lectures her that “the barrels have been there since the eighteenth century.” “Thank you for the TED talk, Dr Wine,” she says.
Claire is the polar opposite. Her role is to make the audience laugh. We have already seen Matteo and Anna at the bar one evening. Next morning, Claire comes over to gossip. Is this an opportunity? “Maybe it’s time to pivot?” she says. Matteo is quite accustomed to using his “pick-up line” on women in five-star hotels. “Did you just order honey for the burger?” he asks Anna. “It’s for the fries,” she says, not explaining herself. Matteo flashes his money; his villa is “just sitting there empty.” After last call, he perks up. “Wait,” he says. “You’re not staying at this hotel?” “I almost maxed out my credit card on a cheeseburger.” “Would you like to?” (Smooth? Or creepy?) Matteo leaves while Anna is asleep. His note on the bed ends “P.S. order whatever you want for breakfast.” The women do. The bed is covered with breakfast dishes. “Just don’t go calling me from a Tuscan jail,” Claire says. “Don’t go into that cahsa…carsa…however they say it…they steal black people’s organs…call me, girl!”
The locations—the fruit-and-veg market, the family restaurant, the truffle-sandwich deli—offer an idealised but attractive lifestyle. Food is presented as if on a chef-travels-to-Tuscany cookery program. Michael “eats tomatoes like they’re apples”; the restaurant which “Matteo was supposed to run” has “no menus, no recipes”; Anna “actually has a dream of working in a place like this.” Plump lemons and sprigs of fresh mint appear on a previously empty kitchen island to infuse a jug of water; the ingredients for Anna to prepare bruschetta fall out of the sky at the very moment that Michael walks in. “Most of the men here are handsome winemakers”; Lorenzo the taxi driver (“by living a fake life you find truth in your own, or you go to prison. Either way it’s very romantic”) names his car ”cute.” Matteo’s mum and grandma gesticulate and talk over each other in exaggerated Italian.
Much of the film is scored with songs in English. That’s a pity; opera better matches the over-the-top Italian sitcom which the filmmakers have created. But some of the music sounds like the kind that plays while children ride a fairground carousel. It reminded me of candy floss. That’s the way the whole movie feels. When Matteo appears back home, Anna has moved in. “You broke into my house,” he says. “You’re sleeping in my bed. Are you wearing my pyjamas?” “I was going to wash them!” she says.
Adam Poole
19th April 2026
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