The Big Picture

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff sits down with the team behind
I Don’t Understand You
at SXSW 2024.
Stars Nick Kroll, Andrew Rannells, Morgan Spector and Eleonora Romandini, and directors Brian Crano and David Craig discuss making their delightfully twisted horror comedy.
The movie is about an American couple that finds themselves stranded in a foreign land without cell service and nearly zero Italian language comprehension.

I Don’t Understand You is all about how a language barrier sends an American couple on a wholly unnecessary spiral during their Italian vacation. But, behind the scenes, the vibe was the exact opposite. Directors Brian Crano and David Craig assembled a team of filmmakers who very much understood their vision, and uplifted it while executing it.

Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells headline the film as Dom and Cole, a couple about to adopt a baby. Before starting their family, they head off to Italy for what they hope will be a picture-perfect European baby moon. However, on the way to dinner at an exclusive, remote restaurant, their car gets stuck. Stranded in the middle of nowhere with no cell service and just about zero ability to speak Italian, fear takes hold and the dominos fall — fast.

While in Austin celebrating I Don’t Understand You’s world premiere at SXSW, Crano, Craig and stars Kroll, Rannells, Morgan Spector, and Eleonora Romandini all visited the Collider interview studio to look back on their experience making the movie.

I Don’t Understand You (2024) Stranded in rural Italy without transportation or language skills, an American couple on the verge of adopting tries to reconnect during a disastrous vacation, as their fears and relationship problems threaten to boil over.Release Date March 8, 2024 Director David Joseph Craig , Brian Crano Runtime 96 Minutes

The whole film certainly isn’t based on a true story, but the inciting incident is. Kroll noted, “We should say that that story happened to David and Brian.” Clearly the duo made it out without suffering through any misconception-sparked bloodshed, but Crano did laugh and note, “We did make it out, but it was scary and one of us panicked, and I won’t say which.”

Which member of the I Don’t Understand You cast would be most likely to keep their cool in such a situation? The answer was unanimous. It’s Morgan Spector. Crano said, “He could carry you out.”

Andrew Rannells Channels ‘The Shining’ in ‘I Don’t Understand You’
Image via SXSW

While discussing wow-worthy work from scene partners, Kroll took a moment to celebrate the work done in a scene he’s not in. He recalled:

“We watched the premiere last night and watching Andrew and Eleonora do this really fun scene near the end, this sort of chase scene. That was like the one scene Andrew and I were not in together so I just got to watch that purely as a viewer. [It] was so fun.
It was like genuinely exciting and dramatic and also weird and funny and dark, and Andrew all of a sudden is in The Shining.
So watching them play that scene as just an observer was a real pleasure to watch.”

What’s the key to striking such a unique tone and swinging for the fences with a horror-comedy combo? For Crano, it was feeling like he had back-up on set, and he had that in spades while making I Don’t Understand You, beginning with his co-director and real life partner, Craig.

“
The best thing about working with your partner is you can trust them to save you when you don’t have a great idea
, or you just feel ill or something and you’re like, ‘It’s five in the morning. This is your scene. You do it.’ [Laughs] But having that shared trust is the best thing.”

Crano continued by explaining how that trust extended to their ensemble. “With everybody here it’s the best because it’s like you know that [Nick and Andrew are] never gonna drop a scene. Morgan and I have worked together before. You know what he’s gonna bring, and Eleonora had just come off White Lotus and crushed it.”

Crano and Craig have a shared mentality about filmmaking that establishes a “rising tide lifts all boats” vibe on set. “We both like to be the dumbest guy in the room, you know what I mean? And let everybody else kind of lift up the material.”

While Crano now has three feature films to his name as a director, I Don’t Understand You marks Craig’s feature directorial debut and he quickly discovered a certain expectation he had of himself that he’d have to shake fast. “Wanting to come in and be perfect, and then realizing the best thing to do is to be the dumbest stupidest person in the room and know that everybody has your back was probably the biggest takeaway I had.”

‘I Don’t Understand You’ Has The Best Salute to Its Crew
Image via SXSW

From there, we broadened the group that had Crano and Craig’s backs yet again by talking about unsung heroes on the I Don’t Understand You set. Crano began by celebrating the film’s associate producer, Eugene Kolb. “[He] would just sort of see you kind of veering into a danger zone and be like, ‘Nope, it’s gonna be fine.’ We will be forever grateful for his help on the movie.”

Craig then took a moment to highlight their A+ producing duo, Kara Durrett and Jessamine Burgum. He explained, “Just the ultimate cheerleaders and collaborators and partners, and would never force anything upon us, but would stress things in a way that made us really feel confident and comfortable the entire time.”

Is your filmmaking-loving heart full yet? Kroll’s response to the unsung hero question should top it off with ease. Craig and Crano didn’t just thank their crew for their hard work. They put them in the movie. Kroll explained:

“I don’t know if he was the gaffer, but there was one Italian crew member with the loudest funniest voice and they put Marco in the movie. He’s near the end of the movie in the airport. He has one line where he’s screaming at a bunch of policemen. And actually,
the end of the movie where there’s a bunch of smaller parts are all crew members, PAs
. That was really fun to watch because movies are these things — you make these films that you’re hoping that the world sees but for us to watch it, it is kind of like this weird home movie of this very specific experience that you had. The hope is that when you do something, eventually an audience likes it, but that you have an interesting and worthwhile experience physically making the movie, and being able to see people that we made the movie with, so many of whom end up in the film, as well as their son is in the movie,
that element is really fun and very generous and smart for these guys to put those people in these pockets in the movie, and it [was] really enjoyable for me to see that.
”

Looking for more on the making of I Don’t Understand You? Check out the video at the top of this article for that and for a little tease from Kroll about Big Mouth’s series finale.