RACE RELATIONS (YOU PEOPLE)

© Netflix

It takes a brave person to make a comedy about race in the US.

But that's what Kenya Barris, the creator of 'Blackish' and Jonah Hill have set out to do in a Netflix movie.

Barris has directed and co-written with Hill a film that directly addresses issues like white liberals' gauche attempts to convince African Americans they are not racist and anti-Semitic attitudes in the black community.

The challenge they have set themselves is: can they wring humour out of these very disturbing problems?

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Barris and Hill have recruited Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny for their ambitious comedy.

Hill also stars in the film as Ezra Cohen, a 35 year old Jewish man who, when he is not working as a financial broker in LA, co-hosts  podcast with his best friend Sam Jay's Mo on music, fashion and race.

Sam's mum, Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Shelley Cohen worries about him and is desperate to see her son settle down.

When she is not berating him for failing to wear a yarmulke at synagogue during Yom Kippur, she is trying to set him up on dates with Jewish career girls.

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Like her husband, David Duchovny's podiatrist Arnold, Shelley is a proud liberal and especially proud that they have a lesbian daughter, Molly Gordon's Liza.

Her pride goes through the roof when Ezra starts dating Lauren London's African American Amira Mohammad after accidentally jumping into her car thinking she is his Uber driver.

Ezra and Amira have a clear chemistry and adore each other.

And when she learns of their relationship Shelley cannot contain her excitement, believing it will send their liberal credentials through the roof.

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But this often results in Shelley treating Amira like a show pony instead of a person in front of other white people.

Amira hails from a Muslim family headed by Eddie Murphy's Akbar Mohammad and Nia Long's Fatima who are more wary of Ezra's motives as a white guy.

Akbar has been desperate for his daughter to settle down with a fellow Muslim and it soon becomes clear the bar he sets Ezra to impress him is so high as to be impossible.

As a result, Ezra in his desperation to win over Akbar regularly crumbles in his presence, often saying the stupidest things to impress him which Amira's dad just dismisses or ridicules.

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As the prospect of marriage looms, Amira and Ezra must somehow find a way to bring the two families together and overcome their parents' prejudices.

However that is easier said than done, with Shirley frequently putting her foot in it with Amira and Akbar hostile to his daughter marrying a Jew from Day One.

Will love, however, eventually win out?

Or will the racial barriers erected by the previous generation prove too difficult to surmount?

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Barris and Hill gamely take on some big issues and occasionally they strike comedy gold with decent one liners.

However 'You People' turns out to be a really uneven affair, with Barris and Hill often overcooking the humour and labouring a lot of jokes.

London and Hill make a sweet couple in the movie which tries to put a 21st Century twist on 'Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?,' fusing it with elements of 'Meet the Parents'.

Hill, in particular, does a good job conveying Ezra's desperation to impress his potential in-laws but both actors struggle with a script that doesn't quite know what tone to strike - hopping between satirical humour, romcom tropes, gross out gags and biting one liners.

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A lot falls on the shoulders of Murphy and Dreyfus, who have to poke fun at their characters' awkwardness and their prejudices.

And while they make a decent fist at doing that, it's still not enough to overcome the film's uneven tone.

Barris and Hill don't seem to know if the film is a light comedy, a laddish comedy, a romcom or satire.

Sitcom style set pieces brush up uncomfortably against acerbic social commentary on the challenges faced by interracial couples and their families, only for a gross out gag to land about Ezra soiling himself on a cocaine fuelled visit to Las Vegas.

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And while Murphy, Dreyfus, London, Hill, Long and Duchovny occasionally land a one liner, there's also a tendency to overplay a lot of its humour - especially during convoluted scenes like one where the families bicker over the dinner table in a sequence that culminates in the accidental burning of Akbar's kufi.

Murphy is good at playing an easily outraged, hostile Muslim father.

Dreyfus hits the right notes too as an overexcited Jewish mom.

Duchovny, Long and Gordon just do their best with a lot less in their supporting roles.

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But it is Sam Jay as Ezra's best friend and fellow podcaster who steals the show as an African American trying to keep her Jewish friend grounded.

Rhea Perlman also surfaces as Ezra's granny Bubby and Travis Bennett as Anita's brother Omar.

Elliott Gould, Richard Benjamin, Mike Epps and Barris feature too in the briefest of roles.

But all of this acting talent is criminally underused to the point where you wonder what lured them to the project in the first place.

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And while Barris and his cinematographer Mark Doering-Powell deliver a slick looking production for Netflix, the fact is none of this can hide the clear deficiencies in the script.

'You People' should be much funnier than it really is.

For a film that likes to remind us of the sharp divisions in US society and the obstacles mixed couples face, it disappointingly comes up with an ending that feels like a screeching U-turn.

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Having created expectations that this will be a romcom rooted in reality, the climax is clearly designed to placate audiences who want the film to play nice.

As a result, the conclusion feels like a betrayal of the ambitious goals the director and his co-writer set themselves.

And that's a goddamn shame.

('You People' was given a limited cinema release in the United States on January 20, 2023 and was made available for streaming on Netflix on January 27, 2023)