Keke Palmer and rapper SZA are seriously broke besties in this riotously funny street-smart female buddy comedy
One of Them Days
Starring Keke Palmer and SZA
Directed by Lawrence Lamont
Rated R
In theaters Friday, Jan. 17
Two broke besties have a wild day in L.A. in this raunchy, riotously fun street-smart female buddy comedy that kicks off the new year’s movie season with a load of laughs. When Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (Grammy-winning rapper SZA, making a very impressive film debut) find out a freeloading boyfriend (Joshua David Neal) has absconded with their rent money, they’re off and running a crazy gauntlet of urban misadventures to get it back.
Along the way, they engage with a gaggle of characters who all contribute to the careening comedic spin. There’s the former stripper (Janelle James from TV’s Abbott Elementary) having a very tough first day working her new job at a blood bank. Another Abbott Elementary alum, Kayla Monterroso Meija, is a stressed-out clerk at a predatory loan company with a ridiculously high interest rate. Dreux swoons for a handsome guy (Patrick Gage) in a Mercedes, until she begins fretting that he might be an axe murderer. A voluptuous temptress (Aziza Scott, from TV’s Home Before Dark) certainly lives up to her nickname of Big Booty. When Alyssa recovers a pair of pricey Air Jordans off a power line, they run afoul of the shoes’ owner, a thuggish gang leader (Snowfall’s Amin Joseph). Euporia’s Maude Apatow is a chipper new—white—resident in the girls’ otherwise all-Black apartment complex, where she becomes an unlikely ally.
But the movie belongs to Palmer and SZA, who have a natural, easy-flow chemistry as they plunge right into the riotous rush of it all, while an onscreen countdown clock keeps popping up to show how much time Dreux and Alyssa have left before they’re evicted from the apartment—or worse.
It’s wall-to-wall randy, rat-a-tat-tat zippy and zingy, peppered with f-bombs and other colorful zingers not meant for little ears. See if you can fill in the blanks of this sample of dialogue: “____, I got knocked on my ___ because of them ____.” Asides about Black hair, Church’s chicken and one character’s, ahem, well-endowment all generated waves of raucous laughter at the screening I attended.
And underneath it all, there’s the foundational subtext of scrappy young Black women navigating jobs (and job interviews), testy romantic relations, depressing economic realities and rapacious rivals, while maintaining their own bonds of sisterhood. When they toast at the end, with Flaming Hot Cheeto margaritas, you’ll taste both the spice and the rich sweetness.
“It’s ghetto,” Dreux says, taking a sip, “but it’s got a runway quality to it.” You might say something similar about One of Them Days: It’s gloriously ghetto, but it totally runs with the gritty glamour of it all.
—Neil Pond
The Media Tourist 