January 18, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Lawrence Lamont
Culture Representation: Taking place in the Los Angeles area, the comedy film “One of Them Days” features a predominantly African American cast of characters (with some white people, Asian people and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two roommates/best friends have less than 12 hours to come up with rent money that was stolen from them, or else they’ll be evicted.
Culture Audience: “One of Them Days” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and comedies about best friends who experience wacky mishaps.
“One of Them Days” isn’t a great comedy, but it’s entertaining enough to show that Keke Palmer and SZA are a dynamic duo deserving of a better screenplay. The movie relies on over-used “broke from the ‘hood” stereotypes. The engaging performances by many of the cast members elevate what would otherwise be a checklist of tired clichés.
Directed by Lawrence Lamont and written by former “Insecure” writer Syreeta Singleton, “One of Them Days” takes place mostly over a 24-hour period in the Los Angeles area, where the movie was filmed. “One of Them Days” is the feature-film directorial debut for Lamont, whose previous directorial work has been in music videos and in television. Lamont and Singleton previously worked together on the 2022-2023 comedy TV series “Rap Sh!t.” Former “Insecure” star/executive producer Issa Rae (the creator of “Rap Sh!t”) is a producer of “One of Them Days.”
In “One of Them Days,” two apartment roommates—career-oriented Dreux (played by Keke Palmer) and artsy Alyssa (played by SZA)—are best friends who are struggling and hoping for better lives than they have now. Dreux (whose name is pronounced “Drew”) works as a server at a Norms diner and wants to be promoted to franchise manager. She has an interview for the job later that day. Alyssa is a painter artist who hasn’t had much luck selling her work.
For the past six months, Dreux and Alyssa have had a third person living in their apartment unit: Alyssa’s boyfriend Keshawn (played by Joshua David Neal), a wannabe rapper who’s unemployed. Dreux isn’t thrilled about this arrangement because—as she says later in the movie—Keshawn was originally supposed to stay with them for only three days. Keshawn is a smarmy sweet-talker who shouldn’t be trusted because he’s a habitual liar.
The friendship between Dreux and Alyssa is like a yin-yang relationship. Dreux tends to be a practical realist. Alyssa tends to be a philosophical dreamer. If they have problems, Dreux is more likely to come up with a logical solution, while Alyssa is more like to say that things will work out in the universe if they put out positive vibes and “manifest to the ancestors.”
As already shown in the movie’s trailer, when the apartment landlord Ushe (played by Rizi Timane) comes over to demand $1,500 for the roommates’ overdue rent money, Dreux soon finds out that Alyssa gave the rent money to Keshawn, who was supposed to give the rent money to Ushe. Instead, Keshawn spent the money on T-shirts advertising himself as a rapper. Dreux and Alyssa don’t have any money in their bank accounts and don’t know anyone who can lend them the $1,500 they need for the rent.
To make matters worse, Alyssa finds Keshawn in bed with another woman, who lives fairly close by. The other woman’s name is Berniece (played by Aziza Scott) and she thinks that Keshawn is her man exclusively. Quicker than you can say “cat fight,” Berniece goes on an angry vendetta against Dreux and Alyssa, because the two roommates intruded in Berniece’s house when they were trying to track down Keshawn.
Ushe tells Dreux and Alyssa that they need to have the rent money by 6 p.m., or else Dreux and Alyssa will both be evicted. (Viewers will have to suspend disbelief, because in real life, the eviction process is much longer and complicated than what’s depicted in the movie.) A countdown clock occasionally appears on screen to show how much time Dreux and Alyssa have before the deadline. When they are given the deadline, they have eight hours to come up with the money.
The rest of “One of Them Days” is a series of misadventures that Dreux and Alyssa experience, as they frantically try to find ways to get some quick cash. They end up encountering some eccentric and over-the-top people along the way. Some of the scenarios are funny, while other scenes fall flat and drag on for too long.
Other characters who appear in the movie include:
- Mama Ruth (played by Vanessa Bell Calloway), a generous neighbor who has a maternal-like relationship with Dreux and Alyssa.
- Maniac (played by Patrick Cage), a random good-looking guy who has a “meet cute” moment with Dreux at Mama Ruth’s place and who later offers to buy Dreux and Alyssa some fast food after their fast-food order gets stolen at a drive-by window.
- Ruby (played by Janelle James), a newly hired and nervous nursing assistant at a blood donor location.
- Lucky (played by Katt Williams), a disheveled bystander who stands outside a loan shark office and warns people not to go inside.
- Kathy (played by Keyla Monterroso Mejia), an impatient administrator at the loan shark office.
- Jameel (played by Dewayne Perkins), Dreux’s openly gay hair stylist who lives in the same apartment complex.
- Bethany (played by Maude Apatow), an idealistic new tenant who moves in the apartment complex and tries to befriend Dreux and Alyssa.
- An anonymous man (played by Lil Rel Howery), who wants to buys a pair of Nike shoes from Alyssa, who found the shoes hanging on a landline wire pole outside.
- King Lolo (played by Amin Joseph), a thug who goes after Alyssa and Dreux because he claims to be the rightful owner of the shoes.
Some of the characters have subplots that don’t work very well. Bethany is the only white person living in the apartment complex where Dreux and Alyssa live. The movie tries to poke fun at Bethany being oblivious to the racial tension/suspicion that her presence brings to the building. Bethany is friendly but very naïve, so making her the butt of some of the racial jokes seems ill-placed and mean-spirited. By contrast, Berniece is an “angry black woman” stereotype in a subplot that’s reminiscent of Tyler Perry comedies and not interesting at all.
Jameel is a very underdeveloped character who should’ve had more screen time in the movie. As it stands, the main “joke” about Jameel is that he’s supposed to be so “ghetto,” he doesn’t have a work space to style people’s hair, so he has to do his hair stylist work with customers in a chair in the apartment complex’s front yard. There are hints that Jameel has a big personality, but he isn’t in the movie long enough to see more of what he could do to make this story funnier.
The characters of Ruby, Lucky and Kathy are by far the most hilarious supporting characters in the movie. Most viewers already know James from the comedy series “Abbott Elementary” and Williams for his stand-up comedy, so their comedic talent is expected. The movie’s breakout revelation is the performance by Monterroso Mejia, who’s a scene stealer with excellent comedic timing in the short time (less than 15 minutes) that she has in the movie.
As for Palmer and SZA, their performances are truly the heart and soul of “One of Them Days.” Even though Dreux and Alyssa get in ridiculous situations, the winning performances of Palmer and SZA make the friendship between these two characters entirely believable. “One of Them Days” is the feature-film acting debut of Grammy-winning R&B singer SZA, who shows she has a very promising future as a movie actress.
Some people might compare “One of Them Days” to 1995’s “Friday” (starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker) because both movies are comedies about two best friends from Los Angeles who have a limited time to find money to pay a debt. “Friday” is much more of a stoner comedy that’s rougher around the edges. “One of Them Days” has a breezier tone that leaves room for romantic possibilities among all the rowdy antics. However, both movies are appealing enough that they’ve got “franchise” written all over them.
TriStar Pictures released “One of Them Days” in U.S. cinemas on January 17, 2025.
