You, Me & Tuscany Coasts on Charm and Scenery

You, Me & Tuscany

★ ★

You, Me & Tuscany is a story about a young woman named Anna (Halle Bailey), who dropped out of culinary school two months before graduation when her mother became deathly ill. Understandably, her mom’s death sent her life spiraling out of whack. When we first meet her, she’s at a crossroads. She wants to get her life back on track but has neither the means nor the deep-seated drive to do so.

The film begins with Anna begging her friend Claire for a free room at the hotel she manages. Anna’s just been kicked out of her apartment, because unpaid rent finally caught up with her. Claire can’t give up a hotel room, but she lets Anna charge her cell phone in the hotel bar, where Anna orders a burger and fries with honey on the side. This catches the attention of a young Italian man named Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor), and they strike up a conversation.

Michael and Anna sampling wine
© 2026 Universal Pictures

Matteo tells Anna about his property in Tuscany, Italy, and that the place is vacant most of the time. They hit it off well enough for Anna to follow Matteo to his room. Romeo, he’s not. He falls asleep while she goes to freshen up. When Anna wakes up the next morning, Matteo leaves a note apologizing for conking out and tells her to order room service—whatever she wants. Claire and Anna talk about Italy over a massive breakfast spread on Matteo’s dime. With $500 to her name, Anna decides to use an open airline ticket from her mother to go to Tuscany.

When she arrives in Tuscany, she discovers there are no hotel rooms available for miles because of a big annual festival. She meets an incredibly nice taxi driver named Lorenzo (Marco Calvani), who drives her around town and gleefully becomes all but her personal chauffeur throughout the film.

Marco Calvani as Lorenzo and Halle Bailey as Anna
© 2026 Universal Pictures

Anna decides to stay at Matteo’s house, using a hide-a-key, because the property is supposed to be vacant. The next morning, she finds a massive engagement ring in a drawer when looking for a charger for her phone. She tries it on, but can’t get it off. To her surprise, two women come in to clean the house the next morning: Matteo’s mom, Gabriella (Isabella Ferrari), and Nonna Alessia (Stefania Casini). They’re about to call the cops when they see the ring on Anna’s finger and presume she’s Matteo’s fiancée. Of course, she also meets Matteo’s adopted brother Michael (Regé-Jean Page).

From here the film follows a standard formula. Anna is mistaken for someone she’s not, and rather than come clean, she tries to be that person. She then falls in love with someone in the circle she’s deceiving, and everything somehow works out okay in the end.

Halle Bailey as Anna and Regé-Jean Page as Michael
© 2026 Universal Pictures

Movie formulas exist for a reason. They often work, and no matter how many times we’ve seen the story, we want to see it again—especially if it’s done well. The problem is, this movie doesn’t execute the formula very well, settling for a paint-by-numbers version, albeit one set against the beautiful backdrop of Tuscany and its lovely vineyards.

Regé-Jean Page as Michael and Halle Bailey as Anna
© 2026 Universal Pictures

Bailey is charming, cute and endearing in a film trying too hard to be charming, cute and endearing. The story’s lack of originality and thin character work water down any chemistry Bailey and Page develop. That’s largely why the big reveal about who Anna really is falls flat and feels like it exists only to stretch the runtime.

A lot of this plays like a movie about Italy populated by characters who seem just happy to be in a movie about Italy. A film about romance in Tuscany shouldn’t have to try as hard as this one does. Long before the credits rolled, I just wanted a return ticket home.