Strange things happen on the first day of every month, it is said. And strange indeed is the day that awaits a waitress and her artist roommate.
Dreux (Keke Palmer) shares her apartment in Los Angeles with her close friend Alyssa (SZA) and Alyssa’s feckless boyfriend Keshawn (Joshua Neal). The ceiling is threatening to fall off and the air-conditioning doesn’t work, but it is all the women can afford.
Keshawn fritters away the money set aside for the rent, giving Dreux and Alyssa until nightfall to find a solution. Worse still, Keshawn is cheating on Alyssa with Berniece (Aziza Scott).
One of Them Days was released in January in the United States to box office success. After a limited run in India, the film can be rented from BookMyShow Stream, YouTube Movies, Google Play and Apple TV+.
Lawrence Lamont’s female buddy comedy, based on a superb script by Syreeta Singleton, is the kind of culture-specific movie that is also universal. The travails of Dreux and Alyssa, who get increasingly desperate to gather the money needed to prevent eviction, are hilarious in an absurdist way while also being rooted in the American Black experience.
Keke Palmer – the lovely actor from Jordan Peele’s Nope (2022) – and SZA – the singer making her acting debut – are in perfect sync as the hapless heroines trying to make it through the longest day of their lives. The dynamic between Dreux and Alyssa is relatable, touching and always zany.
The friends who are in peril of falling out with each other are accompanied on their adventures by an equally nutty bunch of characters. Berniece is as foxy as she is frightening. Patrick Cage plays the hunky Maniac, who distracts an always loquacious Dreux. Stand-up comedian Katt Williams has a cameo as a doomsday prophet.
The movie’s centrepiece revolves around an extended sequence in which Dreux and Alyssa apply for a loan with credit scores so low that the staffer splits her sides. As a viewer, it is impossible not to join in.
Also start the week with these films:
‘Groundhog Day’ is about a time loop we don’t want to escape
In ‘Last Night of Amore’, the wages of temptation
‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’ is an ode to personal and political passions
