By Amelia Lozano
If you think you’ve ever had a bad day, just know that someone out there has it far, far worse.
That’s the takeaway from “One Of Them Days,” which is produced by Issa Rae and directed by Lawrence Lamont in his debut feature film. The film stars Keke Palmer as Dreaux and singer-songwriter SZA as Alyssa. Released in theaters on Jan. 17, 2025, “One Of Them Days” was highly-anticipated and came out with a firm 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Dreaux is a diner waitress trying to work her way up to corporate, while Alyssa is a spiritual painter with a leeching boyfriend. When said boyfriend runs off with the girls’ rent money, they have to do whatever it takes to make up the money before their landlord can evict them.
When it comes to comedies (especially buddy-comedies), there really hasn’t been too much noise about them recently. We’re in a serious drought of straightforward humor and fun but “One Of Them Days” easily makes up for the lack of comedies in the past few years. It’s funny and creative and perfectly ridiculous in all the best ways.
Keke Palmer is truly the star of our generation. There’s really nothing she can’t do. It feels good to see her making a large comeback to mainstream movies after all of her many sidequests throughout the years (television, broadway, game shows, a podcast – the list goes on). Her performance as Dreaux is as vibrant and funny as one would expect from Palmer.
SZA makes her acting debut in this film but if you weren’t already aware that she wasn’t a full-time actress, you wouldn’t know it. She makes acting look effortless. She hits every punchline right on point. I so badly need to see her pursue acting again in the future because she has a serious talent for it.
The most frustrating part of “One Of Them Days” is that it’s simply heinous for the audience to be expected to fully support Dreaux and Alyssa’s friendship by the end of the movie.
As amazing as SZA may be, her performance cannot make up for the fact that Alyssa is a terrible friend to Dreaux. Many of the problems that crop up within the movie are unfortunately due to her poor judgement, which leads to Dreaux scrambling to find a quick fix that doesn’t always pan out. When those problems don’t get resolved, Dreaux is the one to take the hits for Alyssa. It’s hard to watch the pair remain friends after everything that goes down because they really just don’t uplift each other equally.
Still, as tumultuous as their friendship may be, I have to give it to Palmer and SZA for making it all worth the watching and waiting. I laughed until my stomach hurt. There are a few weird and goofy plot points that came up that left me confused about how they would get resolved, like the women’s run-in with the weirdly hostile loan institution or the fate of Alyssa’s art career. Everything surprisingly came together all thanks to Dreaux’s quick-thinking.
“One Of Them Days” is a smartly written comedy and I had a very fun time watching it. I give the film a clean 4 out of 5 stars.
“One Of Them Days” is currently still in theaters with an expected streaming release for April 2025.