“You, Me & Tuscany” (2026) features the Blackening of Regé-Jean Page. It is a special time when a British actor decides whether he wants to be bankable in the US or stay home with lint in his pockets but be true to himself. In other words, pick a side. Don’t hate the player. Hate the game. What better way to do so than star in a rom-com opposite a genuine Disney princess, the woman behind the live-action Ariel, Halle Bailey!
Bailey plays Brianna “Anna” Celeste Montgomery, who wanted to be a chef and visit Italy, but gave up her dream and stayed in her adopted hometown, NYC. When she meets Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor) at a NYC bar, he reveals that he has an empty villa in Tuscany while he travels for business. Anna decides to drop everything and stay in his home. When his mother, Gabriella (Isabella Ferrari), and grandmother, Nonna in Italian, Alessia (Stefania Casini), discover her, they call the police, but stop when Gabriella notices that Anna is wearing Nonna’s ring, an engagement ring which Anna found in the villa. Anna runs with their assumption and ends up getting to know his biological cousin and adopted brother, Michael (Page) and falling for him instead. How can she tell the truth and start living her best life honestly? It is so refreshing to have a rom com that does not hide some devastating, showstopping secret and is just sweet and silly. Usually even in lighthearted comedies, the Black people end up paying real world consequences. “You, Me & Tuscany” is complete tourism escapism fun.
A romantic leading woman would be nothing without a concerned, but ultimately supportive, stable best friend who is not competing in the market: Claire (Aziza Scott). Best friends generally make bookend appearances when travel is involved other than a couple of voice mails and screen casting of text messages, so the heroine also requires the equivalent of a stranger overly invested in her well-being and always happy to help on the ground. Cue the adorable and inexpensive, Lorenzo (Marco Calvani), the local cab driver. They are like character references vouching for the protagonist as a good person because she can be honest with someone and is not a scammer at heart. Anna is a character that could accidentally become a villain in the wrong hands, but thanks to Bailey’s ability to pull off wide-eyed whimsy as the equivalent of a grown-up Golidlocs, she is cute. Writer Ryan Engle (“Non-Stop,” “The Commuter,” “Breaking In,” “Beast”) gets story help from wife Kristin Engle, and the dynamic duo come up with plenty of reasons why Anna’s lie is morally right: Matteo’s family history, Anna’s family history and her inability to live outside of dreams.
Without getting into spoilers, “You, Me & Tuscany” ends up being an American fantasy of Italy with welcoming, eternally happy and approving locals, delicious food and gorgeous, golden vistas. Oh, and Page obligingly taking his shirt off while getting doused in water in slow motion. There is a lot of dense dialogue to explain how Michael, who operates the family vineyard, is a part of Matteo’s family. His hotness becomes the punchline of jokes from tourists who are famous comedians disguised as extras riding in the back of a vehicle. Naturally the hottest couple falling for each other except the embedded conflict exists because she is taken, and her fiancé is his relative. This problem provides a legitimate family reason to go on highly romantic date-like activities while they plan the wedding, but get to remain chaste, an essential quality in the traditional rom com faithfully adhered to here, but someone needs to tell his shirt, which magically becomes unbuttoned during a run through the midrow. Also, kudos to costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini for managing to keep Anna the most dressed potential one-night stand ever and the only woman in history who can wear a white dress while sprinklers douse her without the scene turning into an impression of an entry in a wet t-shirt contest. Director Kat Coiro only objectifies the men. Even Mateo gets a shirtless scene.
“You, Me & Tuscany” also feels like a rehabilitation video for Italy, which has gotten a lot of flack for its treatment of Black people across the diaspora. Matteo and Michael’s family may even be considered over-the-top in their approval. Gabriella immediately wants grandchildren. Patriarch Vincenzo (Paolo Sassanelli), a man of few words who is not known for being effusive with his praise, approves of Anna’s culinary potential, which feels like a stretch that a fetus chef would impress an Italian restauranteur and no other member of the family measures up to her cooking prowess though they have worked there for generations. Francesca (Stella Pecollo), Matteo’s older sister, is filled with ribald asides and even twerks. There is a great long running joke about Francesca’s affair with the local plumber, Luigi, which is excellently timed with the recent release of “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” (2026). Enzo (Tommaso Cassissa) is a social media influencer wannabe who is in awe of literally anything Anna does. Even Francesca’s young daughters instantly cling to Anna, which did not seem like acting because it was a throwaway B-roll crowd reaction shot to an action scene. The only skeptical side-eye that she gets is from Nonna, but not for long, and Isabella (Dèsiree Pöpper), who becomes a crucial catalyst to the need for Anna to come clean.
There is one dig against Michael not really being part of the family, but in the context of the movie’s universe, it is not racist. In the context of the movie theater, the gasps and pearl clutching are audible. “You, Me & Tuscany” manages to keep it easy and breezy in its race references so this move was a clever way to address racism while making it plausibly not about racism. It is a rom com after all. In contrast, “Materialists” (2025) addressed gendered sexual violence, which is a realistic aspect of dating, but it does take the audience out of the genre whereas this movie is a faithful adherent that emphasizes the soft life for Black women. Frankly real life is hard, and no one will buy this movie as propaganda, so no one is leaving the movie theater thinking it is realistic and require a disclaimer, so they do not try it at home whereas dominant caste rom coms are often mistaken as attainable, aspirational romantic goals. If assumptions change, then maybe replicating this subtext in a story would need to stop, but not today.
If you like rom coms and need a foreign destination vacation without foreign destination money, “You, Me & Tuscany” is the perfect option. Also expect to see Page in more movies playing a Black character with Black cultural tastes and Black women love interests to attract Black dollars. While he is incredibly popular, and it may be his choice, he does not get a lot of work. It will be interesting to see if this shift affects the trajectory of his career.
