David Joseph Craig and Brian Crano’s comedy horror, I Don’t Understand You, revolves around Dom and Cole, a gay couple living in New York who’d been waiting for three years to start a family. After an adoption fraud, the couple felt hopeless. They experienced emotional fatigue, and to unwind from the constant stress, Dom planned a trip to Italy to celebrate their tenth anniversary. They looked forward to receiving a call from Candace, a young pregnant woman who was considering Dom and Cole to become the parents to the unborn child. They had become quite used to rejections, but the thought of their dream coming to life kept them going.
Spoiler Alert
Were Dom and Cole responsible for Zia Luciana’s death?
Dom and Cole were overjoyed when Candace revealed that she was considering them for the adoption. When she explained that she had a gut feeling that they would be perfect parents, Dom and Cole felt a sense of relief. This was the news they’d been waiting for, and their dream of starting a family of their own had finally come true. The anniversary celebration was now all the more meaningful and emotional, and Dom and Cole really looked forward to the special rustic dinner prepared by chef Zia Luciana that Dom’s father’s best friend, Daniele, had made a reservation for.
What was meant to be a dreamy affair turned into a nightmare when they took a wrong turn and their car got stuck in a ditch. Dom called for help, and they had no choice but to wait for someone to come and rescue them. When they saw a truck approaching, they assumed the man had come to help them. But as it turned out, they’d trespassed on his property, and he complained about tourists always finding themselves in odd positions. He offered to drop the men off at Zia Luciana’s house. If you’ve watched too many horror thrillers, a stranger with a shotgun and a temper will instantly set you off, and that was exactly how the couple felt. They were relieved when he dropped them in the driveway of a house and left. Dom and Cole initially didn’t know that they had already arrived at their destination. They were the only guests there, and they assumed that the old woman was just another villager who had no clue about their situation. But after noticing the framed photographs and newspaper clippings on the wall, they realized that she was the celebrated Italian chef, Zia Luciana.
Zia welcomed her guests. She had decided to permanently close shop, but she made an exception and decided to cook for her American guests. She brought them wine and pizza that she’d made with immense love and care. Even though they didn’t understand each other’s language, Zia tried to express how glad she was to have Dom and Cole in her house. The title of the film started making sense the minute Dom and Cole met Zia. She wanted to pour her heart out, but the two guests had no clue what she was saying. They were repeatedly misinterpreting her actions and gestures. They assumed she was a tad bit homophobic when she sighed watching Dom and Cole kiss. But it was not their kiss that had bothered Zia, but the wrong wine pairing that disappointed her, and she went back to her kitchen to fetch a couple of bottles of her homemade wine.
Later, Zia mentioned her deceased son, Giovanni, and added that she’d decided to stop cooking for the public after his demise. She initially intended on declining Dom and Cole’s request as well, but they were persistent, and the fact that Dom looked a bit like Giovanni made her feel it was worth it. Since Zia had narrated the whole story in Italian, the couple had no clue why their presence mattered to Zia so deeply. Cole concluded that Zia was a strange old lady who could not be trusted, especially when he saw Zia’s husband in an iron lung respirator. He assumed there was something wrong with her, and he decided it was time for them to head home. They went downstairs to Zia’s kitchen to get Dom’s phone that he had asked Zia to charge. And all of a sudden, the power went off, resulting in massive commotion. Zia was concerned that her husband wouldn’t make it, since the respirator had stopped working. Cole was on the verge of contacting Daniele, but when the power went off, he went into a state of panic, and he ended up pushing Zia off the stairs by mistake. They tried to revive her with CPR, but it didn’t work. They decided that the best they could do was drag Zia’s body upstairs and hope that someone would find her. Just when they were about to leave, the power came back on.
Did Dom and Cole get rid of the bodies?
Zia had asked her younger son, Massimo, to help Dom and Cole after she figured out that their rental car had been stranded in a ditch. When the power came back, Massimo showed up and returned Dom the car keys. In his broken English he explained how their decision to dine at Zia’s had helped their mother cope with her grief. He also added that Giovanni was a gay man, and Zia had sensed a stark similarity between him and Dom. She was back doing what she loved (cooking), and Massimo couldn’t thank them enough. Dom and Cole tried to leave, but Massimo was adamant about having a glass of grappa together. When Massimo went to the kitchen to grab a couple of bottles of grappa, he noticed the notification on Dom’s phone. Candace had given birth, and she’d texted Dom. Massimo was in the mood to celebrate the occasion; he tried to congratulate Dom, saying that he was going to be a dad, but his accent made ‘dad’ sound like ‘dead.’ Dom felt intimidated when Massimo pointed a sharp knife at him. He assumed he’d figured out that they had killed his mother, and he wanted them dead. But Massimo simply wanted to open the bottle he had in his hand with the knife. Cole watched the madness unfold from a distance, and he was convinced that Massimo would kill Dom if he didn’t come to his rescue. So, without giving it much thought, he stabbed Massimo with a table knife. Massimo was flabbergasted; he couldn’t figure out why he’d been stabbed, and before he could clear the air, Dom stabbed him with another knife. Massimo collapsed to the ground, and he noticed his mother’s body lying under the table. Cole performed CPR on Massimo, and while he momentarily came to his senses, since they didn’t call an ambulance, he eventually died of blood loss.
Just when they thought things couldn’t get worse, they received a call from Candace congratulating them on finally becoming fathers. She explained that, soon after their conversation, her water broke, and she was immediately rushed to a hospital. While it was great news, Dom and Cole had to wrap up the mess they’d created to finally experience the joy that they’d always been looking forward to as a couple. They also realized that Massimo hadn’t wanted to kill Dom; he was just ecstatically sharing the news, and they misinterpreted it.
Massimo’s fiancée, Francesca, entered the house unexpectedly, and when she saw the dead bodies, she immediately ran for her life. Cole followed her with a pitchfork in hand. He tried to explain how Zia’s death was an accident and they killed Massimo out of self-defense, but of course, Francesca didn’t believe a word he said. Cole was ready to kill Francesca to cover their tracks, and when Francesca advised him to ‘pack up and leave’ in Italian, he thought she was hurling abuse, and that triggered him all the more. He followed Francesca and was about to attack her when Dom came out of nowhere in Massimo’s truck, and crashed into her. Francesca died on the spot. They dragged her body into the house, and Cole came up with the plan of burning the bodies in the pizza oven.
During I Don’t Understand You’s ending, Zia suddenly sat up straight, and she was horrified seeing Massimo’s dead body. She demanded to know what Dom and Cole had done to her son. The couple didn’t know how to react to this unexpected situation, so Cole struck her with a pizza peel. That was the end of Zia. One by one, they loaded the bodies into the oven, and by dawn they had cremated all their victims. They tidied up the house and left. On their way out of the village, they ended up running their car over Zia’s neighbor, who had dropped them off at her house. One more dead body, but they chose to simply ignore this one.
Did Dom and Cole start a family together?
In I Don’t Understand You’s ending, Dom and Cole made it to the airport by morning, and they booked two tickets to Pittsburgh. They managed to make it through security, and just when they thought they could finally leave the killings behind them, the cops showed up. Dom tried to defend himself, stating that it was just an accident, but as it turned out, the cops had no clue what Dom was saying, because they’d followed the couple to return Dom’s passport that he had left behind at the airport. The couple made it back to the United States safely, and they were united with their baby boy. While the trip to Italy hadn’t gone as planned, they had realized that, no matter what, they would always have each other’s backs, and that made them feel confident about the challenging journey that lay ahead of them as new parents. (Just how quickly they moved on from the crime they committed is concerning, but it’s a comedy at the end of the day, and none of the events are meant to be thought about too deeply, I guess).
Who Was Arrested For The Murders?
The Italian police showed up at the crime scene the next morning. The neighbor’s wife had informed the cops, and they eventually found their way to Zia’s house. They noticed a blood spot on one of her framed pictures, and they also figured a mass murder had taken place when they saw human bones in the pizza oven. They also found a pocket knife on the driveway. Daniele had gifted it to Cole, but luckily he’d engraved ‘Cool’ instead of ‘Cole.’ The only witness to the murders was Zia’s husband, Gianni. He told the police to find the ‘queers,’ but the cops assumed he was abusing them, and they reacted negatively to his comment. Gianni died almost immediately afterwards, further complicating the case.
The post-credit sequence of I Don’t Understand You confirms that the cops had come to the conclusion that Daniele was responsible for the murders. He’d booked the rental car that was spotted near the crime scene, he had called Zia six times before the murder (to confirm Dom and Cole’s reservation), and they were confident that the knife belonged to him. They probably had tracked down the store that sold the knife, and the inscription on the knife definitely made it all the easier for the cops to find Daniele.
Daniele repeatedly told the cops that they’d made a mistake, but they didn’t listen. Considering the precarious situation Daniele was in, it is hard to predict how he would deal with it. He could mention Dom and Cole to protect himself, unless he decides to be a benevolent man and leave his best friend’s son out of the mess. But given it is a murder case, he might confess the truth. The question is whether or not the cops would ever believe him. Meanwhile, Dom and Cole decided to expand their family after a few years. They once again prepared a video discussing a list of reasons why they were dream parents. Over the years, they had come to accept that they would do anything for each other and their children, and by anything, they meant pretty much killing people and covering it up!
