You, Me & Tuscany review – slick romcom offers solidly charming getaway

Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page flirt their way through expected genre tropes in a watchable, if a little unspecific, slice of formulaic fantasy You, Me & Tuscany is a perfectly wholesome and harmless meet-cute that starts by asking: “What if the Little Mermaid had a Lady and the Tramp-style hookup with the season one heart-throb from Bridgerton, spaghetti and all?” Halle Bailey is Anna, hopelessly navigating life after the death of her mother, torn between the worlds of adult responsibility and inner child whimsy. A freelance hustle as a house sitter helps make ends meet, but her impulse to fully inhabit her clients’ lives constantly threatens her livelihood. A gig watching over a spectacular Central Park West apartment seems out of a dream. But it quickly goes awry when the lady of the house (Nia Vardalos in a sly cameo) returns early and catches Anna cosplaying as a Park Avenue princess in her premium lingerie. Embarrassed, Anna retreats into the arms of her bestie Claire (Az...

Kill the Jockey review – a mercurial, skittish crime drama whose hero is a drug-fuelled rogue

Venice film festival
Luis Ortega’s film veers off the racetrack as jockey Remo drifts around the city streets, pursued by a pregnant girlfriend who wants him back and a gangster who wants him dead

People ride horses for all sorts of reasons, explains the jockey hero of Luis Ortega’s offbeat and stylish Argentinian crime drama. They ride to arrive at their destination more quickly, or to wage war more effectively. Mostly, he says, they ride to escape. This jockey is familiar with the nagging urge to take flight. He is a study in motion, a figure in flux. Show him a fence and he will promptly jump it – or die trying.

There is much to relish in Kill the Jockey, not least Nahuel Pérez Biscayart’s wonderfully stone-faced performance as Remo Manfredini, the rider who absolutely, positively has to win his next race in order to keep a gangster off his back. Biscayart plays Remo as though he is the soulful clown in a silent movie, Buster Keaton with a riding crop. He gives the impression of being the bemused lightning rod for events, as opposed to what he really is: an unruly, drug-fuelled rogue agent who is a danger to himself and pretty much everyone else around. “We know all about your unquenchable thirst for disaster,” says leathery Sirena (Daniel Giménez Cacho), the mob boss, in the brief moment of calm between the scene in which Remo performs a slapstick somersault at the starting gate and the moment when he gallops full-tilt at the race-track’s barricades.

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