One of Them Days, 2025.
Directed by Lawrence Lamont.
Starring Keke Palmer, SZA, Maude Apatow, Lil Rel Howery, Janelle James, Katt Williams, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Keyla Monterroso Mejia, Joshua David Neal, Aziza Scott, Patrick Cage, Dewayne Perkins, Amin Joseph, Gabrielle Dennis, Rizi Timane, Dustin Ybarra, Ray Santiago, Galen J. Williams, Taylor Shurte, AJ Troup, Morgan Peter Brown, Nefetari Spencer, and Dominique Perry.
SYNOPSIS:
When best friends and roommates Dreux and Alyssa discover Alyssa’s boyfriend has blown their rent money, the duo finds themselves going to extremes in a race against the clock to avoid eviction and keep their friendship intact.
Fittingly, one of the first wide releases of 2025, already a disastrous year for America that will only get worse, is a comedy about a disastrous day. Directed by Lawrence Lamont (with a screenplay from Syreeta Singleton), One of Them Days chronicles the misadventures of best friends Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA) in fundraising rent money that the latter’s boneheaded partner Keshawn (Joshua David Neal) irresponsibly blew on an entrepreneurial T-shirt line. Making matters worse, Keshawn is a dopey horndog (with an awkwardly shaped penis that freezes people on sight, either from attraction or dumbfounded curiosity) who is cheating on her with the bossy and aggressively hotheaded Shayla (Gabrielle Dennis). Adding more stress to this ticking time clock is that Dreux has a potentially life-changing job interview mere hours before the rent is due.
That setup might not sound unique, but once the film moves past its bumpy and often unfunny opening (filled with far too generic slapstick humor and cringe sexual jokes such as the aforementioned funky penis) and forces these polar opposite best friends (one is likely on their way up in the world whereas the other is an insecure artist who spends her days sexually entranced by a directionless freeloading bum) to enact some quick-pay schemes, the jokes hit harder and feel more inspired.
Dreux and Alyssa find themselves pleading with a self-important loudmouth employee at an instant cash-loaning establishment where the highly amusing Lucky (who is anything but lucky and historically played by Katt Williams) vehemently advises against doing so (with some rational advice) as if these women are making a deal with the mafia. In his defense, there is a bounty board for everyone who hasn’t paid the shady company back. Naturally, our protagonists have no luck, and nothing goes as planned (there are multiple similarly funny sequences, some of which show promise before eventually going south), but most importantly, the scenes and laughs themselves are a combination of clever, unafraid to embrace going over the top. Embracing such ungrounded craziness doesn’t always yield positive results, but the scales tip in favor of the film.
From paid blood donations gone wrong to wacky run-ins with a fast-food burglar (a multi-scene bit that is essentially lengthy promotional material for Church’s Chicken) to the baffling arrival of a clueless, well-meaning white woman (Maude Apatow) moving into Los Angeles-based all-black housing project dubbed The Jungle, there is a welcome chaotic energy to the proceedings that is amplified by the believably tightknit chemistry between Keke Palmer and SZA. As the day goes from bad to worse, they have more to deal with than scrounging up rent money.
Even at roughly 100 minutes, One of Them Days starts to run out of gas, mostly because the filmmakers keep piling setbacks and dilemmas on Dreux and Alyssa even though the story is reaching a natural climax. Some of what follows is still mildly funny but suffers from the usual third-act best friend comedy clichés. One development will not play the way the filmmakers want it to and is an unfortunate victim of poor release timing. It could also be argued that there are too many characters here, including several not touched on yet in this review, such as a muscular bad boy called Maniac (Patrick Cage). Dreux feels too hopelessly awkward even to try impressing him and is somewhat afraid to do so, unsure of what he does for a living. The upside is that nearly everyone gets something funny to do, with reliable scene-stealer Lil Rel Howery making for a terrific cameo.
However, that middle-stretch handful of uproariously hilarious attempts at making fast money, alongside infectious energy from the Keke Palmer and SZA pairing make One of Them Days worth taking time out of one’s day to check out, especially since mainstream theatrical companies are a rarity these days.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
Originally published January 15, 2025. Updated January 16, 2025.
