Horror, not comedy, has been the go-to movie genre in recent years, but a movie like “One of Them Days,” starring Keke Palmer and, in her big-screen debut, SZA, is a good reminder of what we’ve been missing.
Creepy stuff and jump scares, we’ve been told, have proved better suited for channeling our abiding contemporary dread. But the communal joys of big-screen comedy have, and always will, suit dark days as much as light ones, if not more so. “One of Them Days,” for instance, happens to arrive while Los Angeles, where the movie is set, has been decimated by wildfires. The Southern California skies, though, are crystal clear in “One of Them Days.” In the opening moments, someone says, “It’s always cooler on the West side.”
“One of Them Days,” which had its premiere cancelled by the fires, is a welcome warm breeze for a movie landscape that has largely frozen out the comedy. There’s one overwhelming reason for this: Keke Palmer.
This is a buddy comedy, so it might seem unfair to single out one half of a duo. SZA, in her first feature, acquits herself well. But this is Palmer’s show.
Palmer plays Dreux, a Los Angeles waitress who, when her artist roommate Alyssa (SZA) gives their rent money to an untrustworthy boyfriend, Keshawn (Joshua David Neal), goes on a madcap, day-long odyssey to raise the money before they’re evicted. This seemingly low-stakes premise is itself a kind of throwback to a more 1990s-flavored movie. The antic spirit of F. Gary Gray’s “Friday” can be felt throughout “One of Them Days.”
The tone here, courtesy of director Lawrence Lamont, producer Issa Rae and screenwriter Syreeta Singleton, is amiably realistic. Aside from a few cartoonish flourishes, “One of Them Days” is grounded in a working-class reality where every step toward upward mobility for Dreux and Alyssa is swiftly knocked backward.
They live in a dilapidated apartment complex in the neighborhood of Baldwin Village, nicknamed the Jungles. When they’re forced to raise $1,500 — a race complete with a ticking-clock countdown to eviction, and, as things develop, until “certain death” — Dreux is also scheduled for the biggest job interview of her life, to become a franchise manager for the restaurant chain she’s employed by.
The satire of “One of Them Days” is mostly directed at the feeble opportunities afforded to those striving to break out of a paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. When the roommates seek a loan, their payday center advertises a comical APR of 1,900.5%. (The agent, who takes great pleasure in their credit scores, is memorably played by Keyla Monterroso Mejia.)
That’s just one of the characters the two encounter in their pleasantly meandering journey to raise money via everything from blood donation to Air Jordans hung on power lines. Some of the characters along the way include Katt Williams, as a conscientious homeless man who warns against predatory lending; Vanessa Bell Calloway’s stripper-turned-blood-bank-worker; a new white neighbor named Bethany (Maude Apatow); and Keshawn’s new hook-up (Janelle James), who proves the movie’s most regular villain, despite the looming presence of a fearsome gangster (Amin Joseph).
Anyone familiar with Rae’s “Insecure” will recognize some of the hallmarks of that HBO series, namely the struggles of Black women trying to get a leg up in Los Angeles while also juggling romantic interests that might come from a wide range of backgrounds. Here, that’s Dreux’s crush, Maniac (Patrick Cage), who drives a Mercedes and who she suspects is a criminal.
If all of this sounds somewhat low stakes (I failed to mention Lil Rel Howery as their prospective sneaker buyer), that’s more of a pleasing feature than a bug in “One of Them Days.” Besides, filling this movie with anything more — star cameos or broad comedy set pieces — would be a mistake. That would leave less room for the interplay between Palmer and SZA.
“One of Them Days” hinges on central buddy comedy, which Lamont seems to recognize even in his feature directorial debut. SZA’s uber-cool unsurprisingly transfers easily to the big screen; her performance is winning because it’s so unforced.
But it’s a testament to Palmer’s dynamism as a performer that “One of Them Days” would work no matter where their day takes them. There’s a freewheeling wit and ever-shifting subtlety to Palmer, who so enlivened Jordan Peele’s “Nope.” Only a theatrical comedy can really showcase charisma like hers. For an actress who’s hustled to get to this point, “One of Them” days is perfect platform for Palmer, scrappy and unstoppable.
“One of Them Days,” a Sony Pictures release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for language throughout, sexual material and brief drug use. Running time: 97 minutes. Three stars out of four.
