You, Me & Tuscany Offers All It Promises—Tomatoes Included

(SeaPRwire) –   Consider it tomato appreciation. If you love tomatoes—the sight of them spilling from a market basket, piled high on a dinner plate, or chopped and seasoned atop a piece of crusty bread—then you’re likely the ideal viewer for You, Me & Tuscany, an absurd yet completely delightful romantic comedy. It follows a spirited but aimless New Yorker, Anna (Halle Bailey), who discovers romance in rural Italy. Attractive young leads, breathtaking landscapes, and—yes—incredibly beautiful tomatoes are all significant cinematic joys, and You, Me & Tuscany—directed by Kat Coiro and penned by the husband-and-wife writing duo Ryan and Kristin Engle—offers them without reservation.

Since her mother, a chef, passed away, Anna has felt lost. They had shared a dream of a culinary tour of Italy; now that hope is gone. Anna, who left cooking school to nurse her sick mother, scrapes by as a professional house sitter. She confesses it’s a method of “borrowing other people’s lives.” One night, while eating a burger at a hotel bar—she gives the bartender several credit cards, hoping one will work—she locks eyes with a handsome stranger. He is Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor), an Italian man on a business trip. They converse, and a spark ignites. He discovers her abandoned dream of traveling to Italy with her mother and encourages her to go alone. He also mentions owning an empty villa in the countryside. Anna agrees with Matteo about carpe diem. With $500 in her account and a pre-purchased plane ticket, she thinks, why not?

The issue is that Anna reaches Matteo’s charming small town during a busy festival, having booked no accommodations. She recalls his vacant villa. Didn’t that sound like an invitation? It was not—but she finds the place, discovers the key in a flower pot (naturally), and lets herself in. She enjoys a restful sleep in Matteo’s plush bed, dressed in his fine Italian sleepwear. She also discovers a diamond ring in a cluttered drawer, tries it on with joy, and then forgets to remove it.

It’s easy to predict trouble is coming, even before Anna meets a stern grandmother (Stefania Casini) brandishing a feather duster. One might also assume a romance with Matteo is destined for Anna. However, the arrival of a dashing local, Michael (Regé-Jean Page), complicates matters. He’s a charming half-English, half-Italian vineyard owner. In one scene, an errant sprinkler soaks him, and he removes his wet shirt to reveal a toned, glistening torso. Anna is stunned, and the audience for You, Me & Tuscany will likely share her reaction.

The storyline is outlandish, though not excessively more than in many classic 1930s rom-coms, where cases of mistaken identity, silly mix-ups, and small lies were the narrative engines. (It all traces back to Shakespeare, after all.) A strict interpretation might label Anna’s actions as profoundly wrong and unlawful: trespassing, briefly stealing valuable jewelry, and deceiving an entire town about her identity. Yet Bailey’s Anna dismisses it all with a guileless grin, making it hard to judge her harshly. Bailey radiates a cheerful, appealing energy, with remarkably long lashes; you inevitably root for her character to succeed, which includes rediscovering her passion for cooking. Between Anna’s romantic entanglements with two suitors, the dreamy Tuscan settings glowing with warm light, and those tomatoes, You, Me & Tuscany provides exactly what its name suggests. Sometimes, advertising tells the truth.