Keke Palmer deserves to be known as one of the biggest stars on the planet. She has the immaculate charm to easily carry a comedy like One of Them Days – a movie full of smart gags and occasional surrealism, but with the loose, impulsive quality of a true hangout film. Its story pays straightforward homage to F Gary Gray’s Friday (1995), which starred Ice Cube and Chris Tucker as south central LA locals on a quest to pay back a drug supplier and make it to the end of the day alive, with a distinctly contemporary twist.
Palmer’s Dreux and her roommate Alyssa (R&B musician SZA, in her feature debut) have until 6pm to pay their rent before they’re unceremoniously evicted by their gentrifying landlord (Rizi Timane) so he can renovate their place and upsell it to a witless white girl like their new neighbour Bethany (Maude Apatow), who comes complete with an untrained rescue dog called Shooter and invitations to a “prosecco and pals” party.
Dreux works at a chain diner. She’s great with customers, is en route to finishing her college degree, and has landed an interview for a manager position. Yet, these days especially, that still means she’s living paycheque to paycheque. And while she loves her brilliant, beautiful bestie Alyssa dearly, Dreux is the go-getter A-type friend to Alyssa’s chronically late, easily distracted B-type. And, as it turns out, Alyssa entrusted their rent money to her leech of a current squeeze, Keshawn (Joshua Neal), who’s gone and spent it all on his new T-shirt line (really, just “Cucci”-labelled Gucci rip-offs).
So, Dreux and Alyssa will have to chase every means, smart and stupid, to make back their money in under nine hours: short-term loans, blood donations, fetching the Air Jordans tossed over a local power line and selling them to the first sneaker enthusiast they can find. Have they thought about who put the shoes there in the first place and why? Never mind, that’s a problem for later.
With a strong team of creatives at work – Insecure’s Issa Rae as producer, Rap Sh!t showrunner Syreeta Singleton as screenwriter, and music video director Lawrence Lamont behind the camera – One of Them Days blows economic realities up to just the right level of absurd. There’s a biscuit burglar over at the drive-thru; a mentor in the form of homeless man Lucky (comedian Katt Williams), who’s clearly been in these women’s shoes before and so repeatedly warns them to “take heed”; and a loan bank with the hysterically sinister slogan: “We got ya and we’ll get ya!”
SZA is a great co-pilot, giving sleepy-eyed dreamer Alyssa the warmth to answer the question of why Dreux has remained so loyal, despite the antics. But it’s Palmer who serves as One of Them Days’s central force. She’s a fierce comedic talent – when Keshawn emerges from Alyssa’s room in just his underwear and Dreux finally understands the appeal of the guy (wink wink), the way she shrieks “what in the Medusa?” and twists her features into a freeze frame is a masterclass in reaction.
She’s also got that Julia Roberts grin and a real sincerity that transforms Dreux into an emblem of optimism in the face of unrelenting obstacles, in a world that refuses to give a Black woman in her position a single easy route. One of Them Days is funny as hell, but it also speaks to something sharply honest when Dreux sighs and mutters, “It shouldn’t have to be this hard.”
Dir: Lawrence Lamont. Starring: Keke Palmer, SZA, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Lil Rel Howery, Katt Williams, Maude Apatow. 15, 97 minutes.
‘One of Them Days’ is in cinemas 7 March
