🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐
Long before he was a creative force to be reckoned with, filmmaker Kenya Barris was raised in South Los Angeles — home to enclaves like Inglewood, Baldwin Hills and Compton, which have been immortalized in such TV shows as Insecure, Moesha and his own smash hit black-ish. Meanwhile, years before he would even dream of earning two Oscar nominations as an actor, Jonah Hill spent his earliest years in the sprawling melting pot of West Los Angeles. Barris and Hill’s upbringings and cultural experiences couldn’t have been more different. They were literally and figuratively divided by the Interstate 10, the freeway that cleaves the city.
Still, the one thing they share like an ineffable bond is the pride they both take in their beloved city. And now, with their new cross-cultural romantic comedy You People (which is directed by Barris, stars Hill and which they co-wrote), the two Angelenos have taken all the things that they love most about their hometown — the sights, the sounds, the smells — and put them up on the screen. “At the core of it,” Barris tells Tudum, “this was a love letter to LA.”
You People is full of unforgettable characters, with Hill as Ezra, Lauren London as Amira (London, by the way, is an LA native too), and co-starring Eddie Murphy as Amira’s militant father Akbar and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Ezra’s too-woke mother Shelley. But as the story follows the young couple’s romantic journey, it also takes viewers on a journey that introduces another major character: the City of Angels.
Here are nine locations from the film that are quintessentially LA and that, thanks to Barris and Hill, finally get their close-ups.
Ah, the place where Ezra and Amira first meet. In a spread-out town with a relatively flat skyline for a metropolis of its size, Century City — home to high-rises, luxury condos, and swank hotels — stands out for its gleaming glass towers reaching up to the sky. It’s also home to Creative Artists Agency, the talent tenpercentery that’s represented the A-listiest of the A-list since 1975. Though finance bro Ezra doesn’t work at CAA in You People, we see him coming and going out of CAA’s doors — a subtle hint to those in the know that, career-wise, Ezra rolls with the big dogs.
The Jewish deli where Ezra goes on that disaster of a first date with a young woman from his synagogue has been around since 1945. It’s a pastrami-scented staple of the city and a go-to for classics like matzo ball soup and knishes. It’s also so revered that when the restaurant fell on hard times in recent years, loads of powerful regulars stepped up to help save it. That’s why, when Ezra’s date mocks him by saying, “You’re a Jew from West LA, what do you know about ‘the culture’? Maybe deli culture,” it was a meta moment as layered with meaning as a corned beef sandwich on rye.
Nestled in South LA’s View Park/Windsor Hills neighborhood, a beautiful residential enclave that’s been home to affluent Black Angelenos for generations, the health food store and restaurant Simply Wholesome has been an institution since 1984. The proudly Black-owned and community-minded place — a favorite of both Barris and London — is also exactly the type of place that’s right up Akbar’s (Eddie Murphy) alley, with a menu reflecting cuisine from all over the diaspora, from Caribbean patties to Southern soul food. As South LA becomes gradually more diverse (read: gentrified), Simply Wholesome is also totally a place that Akbar might go to whine about the changing complexion of the neighborhood, as he does with Amira and her brother Omar (Travis Bennett).
This palace of dope drip essentials gets some love on screen when Ezra and his friend and podcast co-host Mo (Sam Jay) link up after Ezra meets Amira, and Mo is audibly stunned to learn that Ezra is dating a Black woman. Sure, it’s named Kulture in the film, but the sneakers and streetwear pieces featured in the background are very much representative of what swaggy spenders will see at Just One Eye, a high-minded boutique that blends installations from the world’s best-known artists with retail offerings like designer threads, jewelry, and furniture. This is — spoiler alert! — also the place where Akbar and Shelley dupe their kids into reuniting in You People’s super sweet ending.
Sleek but comfy and inviting, The Line makes perfect sense as the locale for Ezra and Amira’s first date. The hotel is where cooler-than-you hypebeasts can be seen playing pool in the lobby, where partiers kick it in the hidden disco/karaoke bar, and where LA denizens with immaculate taste dine at Openaire, the chic indoor-outdoor hot spot adjacent to the rooftop pool. As romantic reservations go, this is an excellent choice. Good job Ezra!
Packed with plush amenities including a rooftop lounge, two gyms, a pool, and a screening room (this is LA, after all), The Aster is where Ezra tells Mo he’s going to propose to Amira — the posh environs seem to provide all the more reason for Mo to clown the engagement-minded Ezra for that “baby ass ring” he shows her. Part of a second wave of private membership clubs that sprung up as competitors to Soho House, The Aster definitely brings some old-school Hollywood glamor to its sometimes surprisingly gritty address.
This is the famed soul-food eatery where Ezra has the comical audacity to take Amira’s parents Akbar and Fatima (Nia Long) to announce his intentions to marry their daughter. Roscoe’s, which can boast the likes of Stevie Wonder, Barack Obama, Snoop Dogg, Larry King, Shaquille O’Neal and David Beckham among its patrons, has several locations but the one featured in You People is the one in the heart of Hollywood. Packed with families, ballers, and hip-hop stars on any given day, Roscoe’s is so associated with soul food and Black LA, it’s no wonder that Akbar and Fatima felt Ezra’s choice to meet them there was a little too on-the-nose.
Akbar knew exactly what he was doing when he took Ezra to this landmark temple of Black hair and, by extension, culture. Located in the heart of South LA, Magnificent Brothers has been serving customers fresh ‘dos and community-minded love for more than half a century. Which means it’s been a constant throughline from the Black Power movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s, the hip-hop movement of the turbulent ‘80s and ‘90s, the Obama of the era of the ‘00s and ‘10s up to the present day. It’s no wonder then, that when Akbar takes Ezra into the shop, where he’s ribbed as “pigment challenged” by a barber, Akbar expects Ezra to sweat — a ploy that eventually backfires when a finally fed-up Ezra calls Akbar out on his mind games.
LA has no shortage of stunning locales suitable for making matrimonial memories, and Malibu is probably the primo example. That’s where You People’s betrothed trek to for their rehearsal dinner — specifically the gorgeous Calamigos Ranch. Its breathtaking views of the mountains and the beach are straight out of a fairy tale. And Calamigos Ranch is the kind of destination that couples dream of when they envision starting a new life together…which is probably why it’s all the more heartbreaking when Ezra and Amira decide to put the brakes on their nuptials. Luckily, though, they work things out. Maybe we’ll see them head back there in the sequel…
