You People
Cert 15| ★★★✩✩

Jonah Hill and legendary comedy actor Eddie Murphy are at loggerheads in this hugely entertaining post-race comedy from director Kenya Barris, creator of the long-running sitcom Black-ish.

Soon to be released by Netflix, You People was written by Barris and Hill and features turns by Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lauren London, Molly Gordon and X Files alum David Duchovny.

Thirty-something nice Jewish Ezra (Hill) has a mind-numbingly boring job in finance that he hates. Ezra’s real passion resides in a podcast he’s been working on with his best friend Mo (black lesbian comedian Sam Jay).

While Ezra’s parents (Louis-Dreyfus and Duchovny) would love him to meet a nice Jewish girl and settle down, in the meantime they are just pleased to see him do what he loves doing.

YOU PEOPLE UNIT 019 21887 R2

A scene from You People (Netflix)

When Ezra meets and falls in love with beautiful costume designer Amira (London), the couple decide to take their relationship further and marry, but Ezra has to get the blessing of Amira’s father Akbar (Murphy). He is a Nation of Islam follower hellbent on making Ezra’s life into a living hell.

And Amira has just about had enough of Ezra’s forceful mother Shelley, whom she accuses of treating her like a trophy. You People does a very good job of offering up a believable, yet slightly preposterous set of scenarios, which, while being a little out there, seem to work rather well.

The overarching message is togetherness and encouragement for interfaith relationships, but the film manages to be fair to both sides, even if the idea of Shelley being somehow too liberal and understanding — as if that were a bad thing — feels a little misplaced.

You People is funny, if a little formulaic, and both Hill and Murphy are at their hilarious best.
This is the non-buddy story the world has been crying out for and surely someone will cast them both in another film because they seem to be having the time of their lives together.