In 'I Don't Understand You,' adoption hopefuls stumble into comic violence

There’s a wonderfully elemental affectional entreaty embedded successful the opening of “I Don’t Understand You,” a drama from co-writer-directors Brian Crano and David Joseph Craig. Well-meaning, well-off cheery mates Dom and Cole (Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells, respectively) are anxious to follow a baby. In watching them grounds an entreaty video — selling themselves arsenic acceptable parents to an chartless parent — you privation the champion for them. It’s a heartrending, nervous-laughter scene: Are they sincere without being desperate? Charming yet not edgy? In betwixt the stops and restarts, they some wittily fto disconnected steam astir the absurdity of the process.

How hard does it person to beryllium for consenting adults successful a loving narration to commencement a family? That’s wherever “I Don’t Understand You” devotes its much darkly humorous energies erstwhile it sends Dom and Cole to sunny, pastoral Italy for an day trip, dropping them into a bid of lethally unfortunate situations that astir apt lone Patricia Highsmith would see a due vacation.

Soon aft landing successful Rome, they’re buoyed by quality that a receptive large parent named Candace (Amanda Seyfried via video chat) is touched by their story, their vibe being everything she wants for her baby. It’s a cautious optimism, though, competing with the anxiousness Dom and Cole mostly consciousness arsenic cheery men connected the alert for mundane microaggressions, besides arsenic tourists who don’t cognize the connection and urbanites not precisely comfy navigating different country’s backwaters astatine night.

That past interest is what kicks disconnected their nightmare, erstwhile the couple’s rental car gets stuck connected a backstage roadworthy that leads to a distant farmhouse wherever they person a preservation for an day dinner. A mild panic bubbles up. The gruff, irritable and equipped section who shows up lone fuels their conception that decease is surely astir the corner. And it is, conscionable not the mode they oregon we whitethorn person imagined erstwhile they yet scope the rustic location of retired restaurateur Francesca (a nonna-authentic Eleonora Romandini) and find a voluble psyche who can’t hold to service her lone guests a celebratory candlelit meal.

Subtitles helpfully fto america cognize what the skittish, suspicious Dom and Cole ne'er rather recognize astir their affable host. When Francesca’s hulking, inquisitive lad Massimo (Morgan Spector) appears, suggestively brandishing a knife, a blunt fiasco of an evening abruptly tips implicit into a bloody farce of fear-driven misjudgment. Despite the crippled committedness of everyone on-screen (starting with Kroll and Rannells’ believable portrayal of loving, susceptible cheery marrieds), “I Don’t Understand You” is lone sporadically funny.

The writer-directors are themselves a real-life mates who adopted a child, truthful ostensibly we’re getting an exaggeratedly autobiographical peek into what self-preservation connected the cusp of dadhood looks similar astatine its off-the-charts hairiest. And it’s encouraging that the filmmakers opted to crook their acquisition and its attendant emotions into a silly fearfulness drama alternatively of 1 much earnest social-issue drama. (Amanda Knox is simply a listed co-producer too, and erstwhile the Italian limb of justness gets involved, you’ll recognize why.)

Just arsenic its opening triggers anticipation for its wannabe household men, you privation “I Don’t Understand You” to truly nail its downward spiral, and yet it’s thing of a misfire, albeit a likable one. The code swerve into body-count wit and the nuts and bolts of unit yet beryllium excessively overmuch for Crano and Craig to efficaciously mold into a drama of cognition and privilege.