3 stars

I am not a fan of cringe comedy - where the humour comes from social awkwardness.

Think Curb Your Enthusiasm, think every scene involving Steve Carrell's office manager in The Office, shows or films where people put themselves through embarrassing situations.

One of my childhood traumas was the Brady Bunch episode where Greg Brady's ego gets the better of him and he demands everyone call him "Johnny Bravo."

I had to watch that episode from behind the couch, like normal people have to do with horror films.

From that day onwards, the moment cringe comedy creeps into something I'm watching, I'm likely to get up and make a cup of tea or do the washing up, and come back to it when the situation is normal again.

This is the reason I was probably the one person on the planet that didn't enjoy Seinfeld, and it's the reason why it took me four tries to make it all the way through the new comedy You People on Netflix.

I'm not saying it's not funny. Actually, this is one of the funniest films in a long while, such a great screenplay and acted by gifted comedic performers the likes of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Eddie Murphy and Jonah Hill.

But for delicate constitutions like mine, this was a watch that was rough and hilarious in equal measure.

In this contemporary take on the old Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, an inter-racial couple have to endure the cultural awkwardness that race and religion add on top of the already difficult situations of meeting and getting to know each other's parents.

Thirty-five-year-old podcaster Ezra (Jonah Hill) accidentally steps into the back of a car driven by Amira (Lauren London), a typical rom-com "meet-cute", where Ezra mistakes her for his Uber driver.

Ezra is a tattooed hipster from West Los Angeles who enjoys riffing on culture and race relations with his best friend Mo (Sam Jay).

While he might feel colour-blind going into his relationship with Amira, colour is all Amira's dad Akbar (Eddie Murphy) can see, and he does not approve of his daughter's new boyfriend.

Things go in the absolute opposite direction when Amira meets Ezra's parents (David Duchovny and Julia Louis-Dreyfus), with Ezra's mum Shelley, in particular, bending over backwards to prove her black culture cred and open-minded acceptance of this relationship.

When Ezra proposes, Akbar invites himself to Ezra's bucks' party in Las Vegas to keep an eye on any bad behaviour with plans to undermine Ezra by reporting it all back to his daughter.

Meanwhile, at Amira's spa-weekend hen's party, Shelly is, in an embarrassment of liberal wannabe hipness, mortifying Amira in front of her cynical friends.

Ezra and Amira have to wonder if their love for each other is going to be enough if their families are going to make life so difficult.

You People comes from the pen of gifted writer-producer Kenya Barris, creator of Girls Trip and the TV comedy Black-ish.

Barris collaborated with Jonah Hill on the screenplay for You People.

He also makes his feature film debut as director.

His work is confident, particularly in directing the interplay between his characters - the funny riffing between Hill and Sam Jay on black music and popular culture, the nerve-wracking tension of the exchanges between Eddie Murphy and Hill, and every scene with Louis-Dreyfus.

There is Netflix money thrown at the production itself.

This film looks lush and expensive - it is nicely shot by Mark Doering-Powell.

We all have those moments when our families embarrass us, or we're realising that we're embarrassing ourselves, and so there's plenty to resonate for audiences.

As Julia Louis-Dreyfus proved in Seinfeld and then in the caustic series Veep, she is the queen of this kind of this kind of comedy, cringe awkwardness.

She makes the discomfort enjoyable.