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With Issa Rae’s New Comedy Comes Pressure For Box Office Success
The Issa Rae-produced comedy, starring Keke Palmer and SZA, hopes to give fans and moviegoers that ’90s classic Black film feeling.
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“One Of Them Days” is one of them ones.
And it’s been a while since we’ve had this kind of moviegoing experience. It’s an original comedic film featuring a star-studded cast. It’s bound to make audiences shout and belly laugh. Even more, it’s getting a theatrical release when so many films like it are going straight to streaming services.
“It means everything,” Rae said during a press junket.
Starring Keke Palmer, who also served as an executive producer, and SZA in her first acting role in a feature film, “One Of Them Days” is a buddy comedy that follows in the footsteps of classic Black films of the ’90s and early aughts, most noticeably the “Friday” franchise. The pair play Dreux (Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA), roommates on the verge of eviction if they don’t secure the rent money Alyssa’s boyfriend spent. As the clock ticks, hijinks ensue. It’s a hilarious ride with surprises at every turn, but what makes this film even more special is that it stars two Black women, a rarity in the buddy comedy space.
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Rae has brought up her dreams of bringing a film like this to the screen in previous interviews. “Rap Sh!t” alum Lawrence Lamont and Syreeta Singleton brought that to fruition. Lamont, the director, read Singleton’s screenplay for the film four years ago and fell in love with the story. He said the characters and their “yin and yang” friendship stood out. With Dreux trying to get her shit together and Alyssa being dickmatized and free-spirited, their misadventures challenge their relationship.
“One Of Them Days” starring SZA (left) And Keke Palmer (right) debuted with a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.Anne Marie Fox
“I think that’s what true friendship is,” Lamont told HuffPost. “Drew and Alyssa, from day one on the page felt like two girls that we just knew we grew up with. They might argue, but at the end of the day, they’re gonna love and uplift each other.”
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Rae added, “You just know these people. And that was important to us to just make sure that we had elements of who Keke is and who SZA is, to put in these characters and make them whole.”
The Jan. 17 theatrical release is a win in itself for Rae and Lamont. With fewer comedies and even less Black female-led productions making it to theaters, Rae is celebrating “One Of Them Days” getting a release date on Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend. But she feels the pressure for it to defy Hollywood’s expectations.
“There is a pressure for it to be successful so that studios and the industry can always do that thing where it’s like, ‘Oh, Black people wanna see this. Oh, women are coming to movies,’” Rae said candidly. “We need to make more of this. This is just a good, fun, funny time. And we want people to be able to go bring their friends, bring your man, whoever, to the theater and just laugh out loud. It means a lot that this is in theaters because this doesn’t happen for us often.”
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Though the pressure is on, “One Of Them Days” has already found favor among audiences, debuting with a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Lamont echoed Rae’s point, emphasizing the fact that “One Of Them Days” is an original script. With studio executions continuously mining existing IP for its blockbuster productions, there’s less opportunity for new ideas to get in front of audiences.
From left: Lawrence Lamont, SZA and Keke Palmer on the set of "One Of Them Days."Anne Marie Fox
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The Detroit-born director takes pride in not only its originality but how “One Of Them Days” pays homage to a monumental era in film history when going to the movies to see something with a star-studded Black cast wasn’t so rare.
“We are the sum of our influences,” Lamont said. “When I pitched on this film, I pulled references from all the classics that I could find that felt like this movie. Because I mean, yes, there are a lot of classics that happened in the ’90s, especially in LA, but not that many buddy comedies were Black women. We definitely stood on the shoulders of Spike Lee, John Singleton, the Hughes Brothers, Gina Prince-Bythewood.”
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From Dreux’s West Coast flannel to the cinematography and down to the big booty Debo terrorizing the neighborhood, “One Of Them Days” may be set in the present day, but there are nods to Black ’90s films throughout the comedy. It even costars Black cinema vets like Katt Williams and Vanessa Bell Calloway. Newer faces in the movie include Patrick Cage, Lil Rel Howery, Janelle James and Maude Apatow, among others.
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Rae and Lamont have big dreams for the film that they hope come to fruition.
“I hope it’s their [fans’] movie. I hope they want to come back,” Rae said. “And I hope that it becomes a classic that’s referenced with the other canon of our iconic films. That’s my dream.”
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