‘One of Them Days’ Takes a Familiar Store and Infuses it with Stong Characters
I have been around some of the neighborhoods featured in “One of Them Days” as they are not too far from where I live. They all seem to have a nice family vibe going on and are filled with all kinds of blue-collar workers who, like everyone else I know, are living paycheck to paycheck. I keep thinking a lot of people will look at these neighborhoods and apartment buildings as being very “ghetto,” but that is far too easy an assumption to make. Either that, or I am doing everything I can to not sound too white while writing this movie review.
Seeing the way the apartment buildings and inner-city areas are portrayed in “One of Them Days” helps to make this film stand out a bit. The story is old as they come, and we have seen it being done in so many movies of all kinds, but the way certain environments are shown here makes it feel a lot fresher than I ever could have expected. It also helps that the film has a strong cast who portray characters you want to follow from start to finish.
We meet best friends Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA) who share an apartment in a building off of Obama Boulevard, the kind that needs a serious visit from the Los Angeles Housing Authority. The ceiling is falling apart, the air conditioning units don’t work, and everyone has one roommate too many because, as we often hear, the rent is too damn high. And into this “jungle,” as the characters like to call it, is a young white woman named Bethany (Maude Apatow) who is all smiles and comes with a dog who clearly needs a lot more training.
To top things off, Dreux gets a visit from her landlord, Uche (Rizi Timane) who informs her if he doesn’t get the rent by six o’clock, she and Alyssa will be drop-kicked out onto the street. Dreux says Alyssa has already given him the rent money, but it turns out Alyssa’s good for nothing, live in boyfriend Keshawn (Joshua David Neal) has run off with it and into the arms of another girlfriend of his, Berniece (Aziza Scott). This leads Dreux and Alyssa to go on a desperate mission to get the rent money before it is too late, and the clock starts clicking like it does on the average episode of “24.”
In a lot of ways, “One of Them Days” is a version of the book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” and so many other stories dealing with missions needing to be completed before the clock strikes midnight. Dreux and Alyssa’s adventures involve parking in the wrong spot at the wrong time in Los Angeles (seriously, those parking enforcement officials are like ninjas), donating blood for money, and attempting to get a loan at one of those quick credit offices who are just waiting to overcharge their customers on interest payments.
Like many cinematic comedies, the jokes are hit and miss as I have seen some of them done better. The donating blood scene goes a bit over the top, and I remember a better example being done with Al Bundy on “Married With Children,” but the credit office scene is a hoot as it shows an employee laughing her butt off at a low credit score, something I have not seen before. But what keeps the movie together are Keke Palmer and SZA. Even as the comedy gets a bit too broad, they both nail their character’s individual strengths and vulnerabilities perfectly as they show how Dreux and Alyssa clearly want better futures for themselves, but life too often gets in the way.
In addition to making the rent, Dreux also has an interview with a corporate company for a job which will allow her to ditch her waitressing job and move up in the world. As for Alyssa, she is one of the many struggling artists out here in Los Angeles whose self-confidence is so low to where they hook up with people who can never truly value who they are.
Palmer is wonderfully energetic here as Dreux, a person eager to rise above her meager place in life, and I especially enjoyed SZA who takes Alyssa from someone lacking in confidence in herself and her work to one who has more than earned their newfound confidence in life. Even as their characters go through the usual routines of loving and hating one another to where they never want to talk to each other again, and we know they will quickly realize how much they need one another long before the story ends, both these actresses kept me wanting to follow their plight throughout.
Palmer and SZA are also supported by a strong cast which includes Katt Williams as a man named Lucky, and this is even though this character is not having any luck at life in the present. You also have Vanessa Bell Calloway whose character of Mama Ruth doesn’t get much screen time, but who remains a very strong presence nonetheless. And there is no forgetting Patrick Cage who plays the interestingly named Maniac, and he is a human being who almost dares you to judge a book by its cover. While his outward appearance might have one thinking he is that kind of a person, the reactions others have to him, let alone to a certain object of hardware he has in his car, are quite telling of those around him. In the end, Cage makes Maniac into a resilient character who gas been through a lot and has evolved a lot in the process.
I also got to say that I love how strong the women are as presented here. I say this because this relates to all the women I have worked with in life, and they often prove to be much stronger than us men for many reasons. “One of Them Days” proved to be a reminder of this for me, and this is not just because many of the male characters are such babies here. Heck, Keshawn is such a man child that you just want to smack him silly. Some out there might say that the female characters are made to look strong to help satisfy certain demographics, but I prefer to believe they simply reflect a reality we should not be the least bit surprised by.
“One of Them Days” is not going to go down as a classic motion picture, but that’s okay because I enjoyed it for what it was. If you are looking for a nice diversion from your problems for an hour or two, I think this one will do the trick.
* * * out of * * * *
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