August 12, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by David Joseph Craig and Brian Crano
Some language in Italian with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in Italy and briefly in the United States, the comedy/drama film “I Don’t Understand You” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A married gay American couple, who are in the midst of adopting their first child, go on vacation in Italy and get involved in various hijinks when they accidentally kill an elderly woman and try to cover up this crime.
Culture Audience: “I Don’t Understand You” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and movies about obnoxious people who do stupid things.
“I Don’t Understand You” could’ve been a wickedly funny satire of a vacationing American couple trying to cover up an accidental killing in Italy. Instead, this misguided comedy/drama is a witless bore that fizzles early and never recovers. “I Don’t Understand You” is the type of film where if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve already seen the best parts of the movie. In this case, this is not a compliment.
Written and directed by David Joseph Craig and Brian Crano, “I Don’t Understand You” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival. The movie takes place in Italy and briefly in the United States. The challenges that gay couples have in adopting children are used as flimsy gimmicks to explain the motives for some the idiotic shenanigans that take place in the movie.
In “I Don’t Understand You,” married gay American couple Cole (played by Andrew Rannells) and Domenico, nicknamed Dom (played by Nick Kroll) are in the process of adopting an unborn child. The child’s biological mother Candace (played by Amanda Seyfried) is about seven or eight months pregnant when the story takes place. Candace communicates with Cole and Dom by videoconference. It appears to be a private adoption with no agencies involved.
Cole (who is neurotic) and Dom (who is more easygoing) are anxious to have this adoption go smoothly. That’s because they were previously victims of an adoption scam from a woman who pretended to be pregnant, but she really wasn’t pregnant, and she conned them out of an untold amount of money. This fraud is not shown in the movie.
Before the birth of the child, Cole and Dom decide to take a vacation to Italy, where they will be staying mostly in the capital city of Rome. A man named Daniele (played by Paolo Romano), who is a friend of Dom’s father, recommends that Cole and Dom go to a restaurant owned by a local family whose elderly matriarch is named Luciana (played by Nunzia Schiano).
The restaurant is in a remote wooded area. On the way to the restaurant, the rental car that Cole and Dom are using gets stuck in a ditch. Cole whines, “We can’t even get to dinner. How are we supposed to raise a child?”
The cell phone service is spotty, but Dom is able to call AAA car insurance to get the rental car towed and to get a ride to the restaurant. The driver drops off Dom and Cole at the rustic-styled restaurant, which is also the house where Luciana lives. Luciana greets them warmly but she doesn’t know much English. Even though Cole is a vegetarian, Luciana insists that he eat the meat-topped pizza she has made.
Through a series of circumstances, Cole accidentally kills Luciana when he mistakenly pushes her down some stairs, as already revealed in the movie’s trailer. Dom convinces Cole that they shouldn’t report this death because it could put their adoption plans in jeopardy. The rest of “I Don’t Understand You” includes ridiculous things that involve Luciana’s sons Massimo (played by Morgan Spector) and Gianni (played by Vincenzo Gallo), as well as Massimo’s fiancée Francesca (played by Eleonora Romandini), who are not-very-funny stereotypes of loud and emotional Italians.
Dom and Cole become increasingly irritating. And it should come as no surprise that the body count increases. “I Don’t Understand You” makes half-hearted attempts to poke fun at cultural barriers and misunderstandings when people travel to another country and don’t speak the country’s native language. But in the end, it’s just a stupid dark comedy about two people who want to cover up and not be held accountable for some heinous crimes.
Vertical released “I Don’t Understand You” in select U.S. cinemas on June 6, 2025. The movie was released on digital and VOD on June 24, 2025.