Have you had the experience of being in another country where English is not the native tongue, and you think that by speaking louder you can make yourself understood.  That is sort of the idea behind I Don’t Understand You (2024), though there is more to the story.  Indeed, I have some specifically Catholic things to say about this awful film, but not for the reasons you might expect.  More broadly, I did not enjoy its dark humor, but if things had been done my way, it would have been a different movie.  Then again, this can be said for a lot of what I watch.  At any rate, it is time to rip the metaphorical, cinematic band aid off this one.

What husbands Cole (Andrew Rannells) and Dom (Nick Kroll) are taking the time to do at the beginning of I Don’t Understand You is to film their application to adopt a baby.  They are eager to get it right, but as we later learn, all their efforts are for naught when it turns out the child they had hoped for was a scam.  A number of months pass by and while they are still trying to take in a child, they have decided to make a trip to Italy to celebrate their anniversary and distract themselves from the stress of the adoption process.  Once they are in Rome, they meet up with a friend of Dom’s father, Daniele (Paolo Romano), who preempts their plans for celebrating the occasion.  Instead of spending it in the Eternal City, Daniele sends them to a quaint hotel in the countryside, though with the warning to “be careful.”  Cole and Dom wonder about the cryptic admonishment, but carry on all the same.  While they are settling into their room, they get a call from Candace (Amanda Seyfried).  She is the mother of the baby boy they are expecting, and Cole and Dom are relieved to be able to put a face and voice to the process that had previously failed them.  Buoyed by this news, they head into the farmland to locate the restaurant booked by Daniele for their special day.  As they are talking, Dom leads them down an unpaved road that he insists their global positioning system (GPS) is telling them to take.  Cole does not believe it to be the correct way, and is understandably stressed when they get stuck in the rain on the driveway of a private home.  They are found by a farmer (Arcangelo Iannace) who is not pleased to have to deal with two American tourists.  Their Italian is not great, and his English is nonexistent, so Cole and Dom are on edge as he gestures for them to get into his vehicle.  Their mood is not improved when he stops to shoot a deer that had become entangled in a fence along the road.  Then, without any further clue as to their location, there are dropped off in front of another farm house.  With the heavy precipitation, their only thought is to take shelter inside.  Upon knocking on the door, they are greeted by Zia Luciana (Nunzia Schiano).  She also does not understand English, but she gets the frightened men to come inside.  Eventually, Cole and Dom figure out that this had been the restaurant that had been trying to reach when they set out.  Zia keeps up a stream of Italian they do not understand, but the subtitles inform us that she is a bit eccentric, to put it mildly.  While the pizza she serves is delicious, her nervous bustling does not allow Cole and Dom to relax.  All they want to do is call someone to come get them, but Cole had left his phone in their rental and Dom’s battery has died.  Zia does have a landline, but it is rendered useless when the power goes out during the storm.  In attempting to turn on the generator in order to keep her husband’s iron lung operating, Cole accidentally bumps into Zia and she tumbles into the basement and to her death.  This is the point at which the film officially breaks for me.  Instead of doing the sensible thing like calling the authorities to report the incident, Cole and Dom try to cover up the incident.  Once they have moved the body upstairs into the dining room, they are contemplating what to do when Massimo (Morgan Spector) arrives to get the keys to Cole and Dom’s car.  In addition to being Zia’s son, he is also the local roadside assistant.  He also speaks English, which actually proves more of a detriment when he finally returns with the rental.  He insists on having a drink with the tourists before they depart, and goes to look for his mother in order to obtain a suitable bottle.  As soon as he leaves the room, Cole and Dom make for their car but are greeted by Massimo’s fiancée, Francesca (Eleonora Romandini).  Also, Dom realizes he had left his cell inside and returns for it.  In his search for alcohol, Massimo had seen messages from Candace saying that she has gone into labor and that they are going to be fathers.  Overjoyed, Massimo keeps telling Dom that the American is going to be a dad, but his accent makes it sound like “dead.”  Further, Massimo has a knife in his hand.  Cole sees the situation outside and goes back inside, stabbing Massimo between the neck and shoulder.  Dom finishes Massimo when the Italian looks to be threatening Cole.  In the middle of this chaos, Cole and Dom get the call from Candace saying that she is about to deliver. Not long after they hang up, Francesca enters the room wondering what has become of everyone.  She sees the bloody mess and screams.  Cole is dispatched to take care of her, but it is Dom who inadvertently kills her by hitting her with Massimo’s truck.  With a trio of corpses, Cole and Dom attempt to clean up the murder scene by mopping the floors and burning the bodies in the pizza oven.  Their only thought now is to get to the airport and to Pittsburgh to meet their new son.  The Italian police are on the scene in the morning, but are seemingly unable to find anything implicating Cole and Dom.  They are given a scare just as they are boarding their plane when they are approached by a group of security personnel, but it is only to return their passports that had been left at the checkpoint.  With that, they make it to Candace and fatherhood.

This Catholic reviewer does not have a problem with I Don’t Understand You because it features two gay men becoming dads together, though that is not ideal.  The Church teaches that children do best being raised in a home with a mother and a father.  The common counter to this is that orphaned kids need homes, and same sex couples can provide one.  While it may be better than being in the foster system, the Church says there is something missing from such an arrangement.  However, this is not why the movie is bad.  I did not enjoy it because Cole and Dom made a series of terrible choices on their fateful anniversary night in the Italian countryside.  Now, I get it: this is supposed to be funny, although I often have trouble finding murder to be humorous.  What irks me is their cavalier attitude towards their heinous acts.  I am not sure the film is charitable to them, either.  I accept Catholicism’s teachings on homosexuality.  While It does not condone same sex relationships, It maintains that they are human beings with dignity and within God’s loving embrace.  With the way they go about killing and covering up, and how they are too easily distracted by their impending fatherhood, all seems like a form of gay bashing.  Even if you do not accept such a claim, I am dubious of their qualifications for being dads.  They justify their actions to themselves as a willingness to do whatever it takes to be a father.  Yet, lying and murder, not to mention the desecration of bodies, leave this reviewer with a bad sense of their qualifications as parents.  This all makes the scene in the hospital when they finally meet Candace and their child nothing by distasteful.  Again, I understand this is supposed to be a comedy, but I implore Hollywood to find different material.

Indeed, I would take many other forms of comedic material over I Don’t Understand You.  I feel compelled to repeat that my reason for criticizing it is because of Cole and Dom’s sexual orientation.  I am Catholic, not prejudiced.  What I cannot condone is murder in any situation, and that as about as Catholic as a position I can give you.