Trailer for the movie "What People" (Netflix)
Star rating for movies - 0.5 stars (photo: image processing, .)
The percentage of "mixed marriages" among American Jewry is high in reality - and even higher in popular culture.
Since time immemorial, the entertainment industry has loved to present such assimilation.
It started in the 1920s with the hit show "The Irish Rose", and continued in the 1970s with the series "Bridget Loves Bernie" which was also initially a great success.
After that came countless other examples, including "My Affair with Annie", series like "Thirty Something" and "Rogarts", the "Meet the Pokers" movie series and the like.
Now also comes the movie "You People", which premiered directly on Netflix this weekend.
As in most previous cases, here too the Jewish side of the relationship is the man and the non-Jewish side is the woman.
The difference is that in most series and movies in the past, the non-Jewish woman was a white Christian.
Here, the relationship is between a young Jewish man and a young black woman whose parents converted to Islam, and who turn out to be followers of the Nation of Islam - the organization led by Louis Farrakhan was involved in quite a few incidents and anti-Semitic statements.
The friction between the Jewish community and the black-Islamic one is one of the most explosive in the United States right now, and the film tries to deal with it in a comical way to release the tension.
It's a complex challenge, and unfortunately "some people" doesn't live up to it.
This failure is also disappointing because of the names behind it.
This is the first motion picture as a director of Kenya Brice, who became famous among other things as the creator of the famous series "Such Black".
It stars a long list of stars and starlets that need no introduction: Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jonah Hill and David Duchovny, people who would need an entire article to summarize the box office achievements of the works starring them and all the nominations and awards they have garnered throughout their careers.
The summit meeting between them turns out to be a mountain that gives birth to a mouse.
A mountain that gives birth to a mouse.
From "What People" (Photo: Netflix)
Here Hill plays a podcaster who lives in a luxury neighborhood in Los Angeles and goes by the Jewish name in the world - Ezra Cohen.
He runs into a black designer played by Lauren London and initially believes her to be his Uber driver, so their relationship starts off on the wrong foot.
However, as usually happens in movies, this misunderstanding leads to a fiery romance.
The two fall head over heels in love, and without thinking twice decide to get married.
There's just one problem: their families.
The Jewish parents brandish liberal ideologies, but it is evident that in practice they have never had any interaction with blacks, and their every encounter with the bride and her family leads to embarrassment.
The black Muslim parents, on the other hand, hold an ideology that views Jews as privileged and complicit in crimes against them, and find it difficult to hide their hostility.
"Some People" is a Borax movie - a kind of American version of "Katz and Kerso" or "Good Guys", which became the biggest domestic blockbuster of the last year.
As we wrote in his case, despite their negative image, there is nothing wrong with Burkes films.
They are a genre like any genre.
You can make a good Borax movie if you do it right, but it doesn't happen here.
First of all, it is not clear what exactly drives the plot of "What People".
In the French hit "Why do I deserve it" there was a similar story, and there was also a plot axis: the father of the groom and the father of the bride opposed the wedding from the beginning and tried to prevent it with all their might, which turned the film into a race against the clock.
Why do we deserve it?
From "What People" (Photo: Netflix)
Here, the reaction of the parents is not uniform: it is understood that they are skeptical, but it is not understood what they are planning or wanting to do.
The result is a confused script, which for no less than 118 minutes is based exclusively on a sequence of passive-aggressive behaviors.
In "Good Guys", the hero did a trick so that he could connect with the love of his heart despite the social gaps that separated them.
There are no tricks, gimmicks or creative plot moves in "Some People".
Everything here happens by force of inertia.
The parents behave this way because they are such people, and their children are completely passive.
The only question is when the family conduct will exhaust them, and the question is of course also when all this will exhaust us, the viewers.
I was able to watch the movie to the end, but despite all the comedic talents in it, I don't remember a single joke from it.
It is also unconvincing in any respect: the chemistry between the young lovers is insufficient, the behavior of their parents is overly extreme and the plot solution that ends the saga is deus ex machina.
The film claims to be a reconciliation decree that brings hearts together, but it sins in a stereotypical representation of the two tribes.
The Jews here are rich, white, spoiled, self-righteous and detached.
The father is a doctor, the son is chubby and works in the media and so on.
The blacks, on the other hand, are nervous, angry, jealous and patriarchal, and the bride is talked about mostly in connection with her hair.
Most of the time, "Some People" is just an uninspired movie, but it has one infuriating moment.
This happens when the families first meet for dinner, and of course it takes place with the Jewish parents, so that the film can remind the American audience that the Jews are with the ones with the money.
The conversation initially flows pleasantly, but then both sides are dragged into the "oppression olympics", where each side tries to claim that it suffered more.
One mentions the Holocaust, the other slavery.
From the movie "Some People" (Photo: Netflix)
Both sides make legitimate arguments, at least partially, but then the black-Muslim father played by Murphy declares, "You came here with the money you earned from the slave trade", thus echoing one of the most wrong and dangerous conspiracy theories about American Jews, which ironically is also one of the most common Among them, also and especially nowadays.
Although, shamefully, there were American Jews who owned slaves, and there were also those who were involved in the Dutch slave trade, but in all cases the numbers are small.
The Jews are a footnote in the history of slavery and not a major factor in it, as those theories favorable to the Nation of Islam try to claim, and they did not come to America with money from the slave trade.
The grandfather or great-grandfather of the hero, to whom the angry father refers, probably immigrated to America after escaping the shtetl, without capital or assets, and what little he had he did not obtain through the oppression of blacks.
Oh no.
From "What People" (Photo: Netflix)
The inclusion of this sentence in the film is infuriating for several reasons.
First of all, because he ends the debate, just before something silly happens, in the spirit of trying to combine serious issues with verbal humor and slapstick.
Second, because it passes without any reaction, opposition or denial.
Third, and worst of all, because it is presented among difficult but valid arguments.
Just before the historical distortion, the black father says, for example, that Jews in America do not suffer from police violence like blacks in America.
This is of course very true, which frames his statements as accurate and relevant and may create the false impression that the chatter about slavery is also true, but it is not, and "Some People" sins in a dangerous and frivolous combination of factual assertions and unfounded conspiracy theories.
Netflix wants to rule the world - and that's fine, but if so, then I'm allowed to take its comedies with abysmal seriousness.
"Some People" is a bad movie hiding behind good intentions, and we all know where good intentions lead.
culture
Theater
film review
Tags
Eddie Murphy
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Jonah Hill
Netflix
so black
good guys
United States Jewry