Talk about unfortunate timing: Imagine releasing a comedy about rents and apartment struggles in Los Angeles this week of all weeks. It’s impossible to blame the creators of One of Them Days for their film’s theatrical debut coinciding with the L.A. fires, but it’s unfortunate. If anything, it makes this sometimes witty, sometimes earthy, sometimes insightful, sometimes funny comedy almost feel like a time capsule. Yet that’s more likely because it’s such a blatant attempt to re-create the energy and era-defining impact of 1995’s Friday.
It’s not simply the setting – a poor Black neighborhood in Los Angeles, filled with charming, hardscrabble community members who kinda, sorta have each others’ backs. It’s, well, everything. In Friday, two amiable goofs played by an established actor (Chris Tucker) and a musician making a name as an actor (Ice Cube) had until 10pm to settle a $200 debt with a local gangster. This time it’s aspirational waitress Dreux (Palmer, Nope, Alice) and her artist roommate Alyssa (SZA making her acting debut) who get on the wrong side of King Lolo (Joseph) and have until 10pm to get him $5,000, which shows how bad inflation has got. Yet Lolo’s their second ticking clock of the day, as first they have to pay the rent by 6pm.
The setup is simple (gotta get that money) but it’s all really about the duo sorting out their lives, their careers, and their relationships in one crazy day. That’s where the biggest difference between One of Them Days and Friday emerges: an underlying sense of optimism. The 1995 classic ended with a pointed wink to the audience that nothing’s going to change, while the antics of Dreux and Alyssa are about an upward trajectory, mostly from Dreux trying to get to an all-important job interview. SZA brings a broad, amiable energy to the easily distracted artist who can’t see her own talent, while Palmer gets to display a knack for comedic panic and desperate eye-rolling at the carnage that their quest for cash invokes. That’s handy, since the script from Syreeta Singleton (making her feature debut after TV’s Central Park and Insecure) wobbles unevenly between the broadest of broad comedy and a touching buddy-buddy routine between the two leads as they navigate the problematic men in their lives. For Alyssa, it’s wastrel Keshawn (played with an excellent lackadaisical air by Neal), while Palmer has endless fun fawning awkwardly over the charming but worryingly named Maniac (Cage, Westworld).
Even if One of Them Days does turn out to be a time capsule of an L.A. that has been incinerated, maybe time is the real test. After all, Friday wasn’t a big hit when it came out, gaining its cult status over time on home video. One of Them Days shares the same kind of comfy, goofy, undemanding rewatchability. Yes, Singleton’s script makes some sideways gags about issues like gentrification and white hipster incursions into the apartment. Yet they’re delivered with such a light touch that it’s clear they’re there to raise a giggle, not make a political point (and, in the case of a subplot about the menace of payday lenders, to get Katt Williams onscreen). So maybe the real test of One of Them Days may not be if such moments get laughs first time around on opening weekend, especially in the current depressed box office. Instead, it’ll be if, like Friday, we’re still talking about it in 30 years – or at least get Another of Them Days. With SZA and Palmer’s easy charm, that would be no bad thing.
This article appears in January 17 • 2025.