You People is a Netflix-original American romantic comedy released on January 27, 2023. Written and produced by Jonah Hill and Kenya Barris, the movie focuses on the relationship between an interracial couple as they navigate their careers and cultural differences. In the movie, Ezra Cohen (Jonah Hill) is a Jewish broker and aspiring podcaster who falls in love with Muslim African-American fashion designer Amira Mohammed (Lauren London). The pair meet when Ezra gets into Amira’s car after mistaking her for his Uber driver. 

Six months into their relationship, including moving in together, the two meet each other’s families. Ezra’s mother Shelley (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) fails at her several attempts to appear accepting but instead displays exclusionary behaviors. Before she can make another offensive statement, Ezra pulls her aside to share his intentions to propose to Amira. Later on, Ezra invites Amira’s father, Akbar (Eddie Murphy), and Fatima (Nia Long) out to lunch in hopes of getting their blessing of marriage. However, Ezra says all the wrong things and does anything but impress his girlfriend’s parents. When he gets home that day, he asks Amira to marry him, to which she agrees.

Ezra resigns from his job as a broker to focus on building his podcast with his best friend, Mo (Sam Jay). When Ezra and Amira invite their parents to their house, both families get into intense cultural discussions. Later, the couple attempt to bond with the other’s family, Ezra with Akbar and Amira with Shelley. Akbar attempts to humiliate Ezra by taking him to a barbershop while he’s not in appropriate attire and to a basketball court in hopes of watching Ezra humiliate himself. Ezra also continues to take his future father-in-law’s criticism over his decision to quit finance to build his podcast. While enduring a spa day with Shelley, Amira deals with the woman’s thoughtless comments and inappropriate attempts at conversation. The uncomfortable encounters continue at the couple’s bachelor and bachelorette parties.

The couple loses patience with their future in-laws at their wedding rehearsal dinner. Ezra accuses Akbar of never giving him a chance, hating him before getting the chance to meet him, and failing to accept his love for Amira. Amira calls out Shelley’s ignorant and insensitive comments about race and only sees Amira as a “toy.” Believing that their family differences are affecting their relationship, the couple calls off their wedding. Three months after the split, Mo and Ezra’s podcast is taking off. After listening to Ezra give a meaningful speech on his podcast about race differences, both parents realize their errors. Akbar and Shelley trick their children into running into each other at a retail store, where they acknowledge their mistakes, making Ezra and Amira realize they can truly be together. To their surprise, their families had set up a wedding inside the retail store filled with both sides’ friends and families. Ezra and Amira happily marry.

You People assembled an all-star cast, filled with romance and humor, but received mixed to negative reviews on Rotten Tomato, only scoring 43%. While entertaining, the movie did not reach its full potential. While the audience expected and was satisfied when Ezra and Amira got back together at the end of the movie, their parents learned from their mistakes too fast. Akbar spent the entire movie with a negative view of Ezra and Judaism, yet became more accepting in the last five minutes of the movie. Shelley spent the movie with an ignorant view of African-American culture, and likely didn’t fully learn her lesson by the end of the movie as it appeared. Her ignorant comments about African-American culture were also very forced and unrealistic. Ezra and Amira forgave their in-laws at the end of the movie but were likely much more surprised by the apologies they received than relieved. The story was too quickly resolved. Overall, You People was an enjoyable movie with a cast that had entertaining performances but had the potential to release a stronger message.