Director Kat Coiro is a longtime fan of romantic comedies, ranging from the 1940s classics of Preston Sturges to the work of later masters like Richard Curtis and Nancy Meyers. When she read Ryan Engle’s screenplay for “You, Me & Tuscany,” she knew immediately that she wanted to make it. “I had not read a rom-com that had such propulsive forward motion,” Coiro told IndieWire. “A lot of rom-coms feel stilted and limited to two people just talking, but this felt like a real adventure.”
In Coiro’s hands, Engle’s story of a failed chef (Halle Bailey) who ends up staying in a Tuscan villa under false pretenses — only to fall in love with a local (Regé-Jean Page) in a relationship that’s doomed if she tells the truth and doomed if she doesn’t — becomes a true big-screen pleasure. It’s a romance with scale and texture that combines the architectural and atmospheric splendor of Nancy Meyers with the fast badinage and energetic ensemble acting of Curtis or Sturges. For Coiro, the key was treating Italy not as a mere backdrop but an organic extension of the characters’ impulses and feelings — and as a character itself.
“I love Italian cinema, and I hate it when American movies come into Italy and just use it as a backdrop,” Coiro said. “It almost feels exploitative.” To that end, Coiro sought to incorporate “the culture, the rhythms, the tastes” of the region where she was shooting, which led to lively sequences like a barrel race inspired by traditional Italian competitions, as well as music by local musicians woven into the action and soundtrack. “The idea is that it’s not an American film in Tuscany; it’s a Tuscan film that happens to have some Americans drop in.”
The movie was shot on gorgeous locations in Tuscany and on the backlot at the legendary Cinecittà studios in Rome. To put the maximum time and resources into shooting in Tuscany, the crew shot early New York-set scenes not in Manhattan but on a volume stage in Italy. “I pinched myself every day,” Coiro said of working on the same studio lot where Fellini and so many of her other heroes shot their most famous films. “I couldn’t believe that I was getting this opportunity.”
While the Tuscan setting provided its own kind of epic sweep, Coiro sought to add further scope to the movie by meticulously casting each supporting role, no matter how small — the place where the Preston Sturges influence is felt most keenly. “ One of the things that makes a rom-com feel more like a streaming movie when they’re about just two people and not about a world,” Coiro said. “It was really important to me that I populate this film with real people who all deserve spinoffs.”
Once Coiro had her ensemble, she tried to capitalize on their specific talents by shooting with multiple cameras, allowing the actors to find moments on the fly that made their way into the movie without worrying about continuity. “ When you’re doing comedy, you need at least two cameras,” Colro said. “The script is amazing, but we also go off-script and capture moments of spontaneity and jokes that are unexpected. When you have the two cameras, you can easily edit it together and don’t have to recreate it when you turn around on the other side.”
Shooting with multiple cameras helped with what is undeniably the film’s greatest strength, which is the infectious romantic chemistry between Bailey and Page, as well as the comic chemistry between Bailey and the various Italians she initially dupes but ultimately comes to adore. “You can’t create chemistry,” Coiro said. “What you can do is foster it and nurture it by setting up a safe space where people feel comfortable being themselves. My mission is to get everyone to bring their authentic selves to the characters by creating that safe space for the actors to play.
The ensemble, combined with the exquisite landscape photography, gives “You, Me & Tuscany” a sweep that Coiro felt was important in an age when so many rom-coms have gone over to streaming. Although Coiro herself has directed plenty of shows and movies for streaming and television, she differentiates between those and a theatrical feature like “You, Me & Tuscany.” Her approach isn’t different, but the intended form of reception for the audience is, and keeping the big-screen rom-com experience alive is vitally important to the director.
“Those Nancy Meyers and Richard Curtis movies share an aspirational quality, where life can be really beautiful and bigger than you imagined,” Coiro said. “So many elements went into making this feel like an old school theatrical experience, both in the way it’s shot and in terms of the comedy — the best way to see the film is with a group of people who are laughing at the screen and interacting. My philosophy as a filmmaker is that I want people to commune and have fun together, and that’s really what I’m hoping this film can do — bring people back to theaters for a lighthearted adventure.”
“You, Me & Tuscany” opens in theaters on Friday, April 10.
