Beware of spoilers ahead!
Picture your hardest midterm. Now picture waking up one morning and realizing that said midterm, which you thought was a week away and thus hadn’t really studied for, was actually that morning – an hour before you woke up. You sprint to the exam hall and slide into your seat, panting, somehow freezing cold and burning hot at the same time. Your senses are in overdrive. Then, you look down and realize your midterm is written entirely in the Wingdings font, which seems to be legible to everybody except you. Oh, and you’re still in your pyjamas. And there’s only 30 minutes left to complete the exam.
From there, you’ve got a pretty good idea of how the events in One Of Them Days (2025) feel.
Hitting cinemas in mid-January with a bang, the Issa Rae-produced film injects nightmare-fuel scenarios like the one above with dazzling humour and charm. One Of Them Days features two best friends, Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (Solána Rowe), and the obstacles they face in a race against the clock to avoid eviction after Alyssa’s boyfriend spends their rent money on a foregone T-shirt business. Solána Rowe, better known as SZA, makes her acting debut (though you’d never guess it) alongside the multi-talented veteran Keke Palmer. A ray of sunlight in the general malaise of winter, the duo’s impeccable comedic timing and hilarious dynamic make it easy to root for them as they stomp and stumble through their day.
Set in the heart of Los Angeles, Black culture is highlighted and celebrated in every facet of the film. Dreux and Alyssa live in Baldwin Village, a majority-Black working-class neighbourhood affectionately nicknamed “The Jungles.” Behind the film is an all-Black core team of directors, producers, and writers, guaranteeing an “authenticity” that underpins the film’s comedy and protects its cultural integrity. Ergo, One Of Them Days does more than just represent Black people – it ensures that Black people are not the butts of jokes but the ones making them, as well as the ones receiving credit for the laughter they elicit.
Up until recently, Black actresses in comedy played roles that made punchlines at the expense of their Blackness – perhaps the token best friend or the disempowered worker. Even as more and more Black women found prominence in the acting world, there remained a stark gap in comedies that spotlighted Black women and culture. One Of Them Days seeks to remedy this. The last buddy-comedy with two Black female protagonists was B*A*P*S (1997), which director Lawrence Lamont cites as one of the sources of his primary motivation: the pride he feels in seeing Black women in leading roles. As the first of its kind in close to 30 years, the box-office success of One Of Them Days sparks hope for widened avenues for Black actresses to showcase their comedic chops in cinema.
In a way, One Of Them Days is a gender-swapped version of Friday (1995), a cornerstone film in Black cinema that underlines not just the strife faced by Black communities but the joys shared amongst them, too. One Of Them Days pays tribute to its predecessor in many ways. The opening shot of a pair of sneakers hanging by their laces from a phone line in Friday becomes a central plot point in One Of Them Days, and both films feature the shenanigans of a pair of best friends (played by Ice Cube and Chris Tucker in Friday) over the course of a day-long mad dash against time.
Most importantly, like Friday, One Of Them Days is more than just a comedy. Beyond giving Black women the screen time they deserve, the film illuminates the harsh circumstances of Black neighbourhoods and communities in California. There, displacement is at a record high. The proliferation of development projects in Los Angeles has denied residents access to and gentrified various public spaces, infringing on already historically disenfranchised Black communities who have lived in the region since the 1940s. Moreover, skyrocketing real estate prices have forced many from their long-time homes, either into the growing urban sprawl on the outskirts of Los Angeles or onto the streets. Los Angeles had a homeless population of at least 75,000 in 2024, with this figure rising in tandem with the recent wildfires. Dreux and Alyssa’s fight to keep their apartment, while portrayed in a series of messy yet amusing events, is a sobering indictment of the very real issue of homelessness in California – and the desperation to avoid it.
In the same vein, One Of Them Days reawakens another classic comedy genre: the working-class comedy. Like Friday, One Of Them Days pokes fun at the struggles of the working class while simultaneously elevating them into public awareness. Amidst her and Alyssa’s haphazard attempts to make rent, Dreux contends with the anxiety of a make-or-break job interview; as well as a disastrously low credit score, which a clerk laughs uncontrollably and unabashedly at. While tonally humourous, these scenes engage the working-class majority in their relatability. More people can relate to self-doubt and instability than they can to the far-fetched plots that populate the comedy scene.
This, on top of its talented cast and stellar script, is perhaps what makes One Of Them Days so good. Its humour resonates with and reflects the realities of a demographic widely underrepresented in the glamour of Hollywood, reassuring them that they are not alone in their frustrations and upset. This solidarity extends beyond the screen: in an Instagram post, Lamont wished for One Of Them Days to “provide a moment of escape and joy when the time is right” for those affected by the destructive Los Angeles wildfires.
To those puzzled about how such a thematically serious film can be considered a comedy: fret not. While underscored by consequential Black issues, One Of Them Days highlights Black sisterhood and community through universal laugh-out-loud moments. The family-like bonds between the characters in The Jungles ameliorate seemingly insurmountable challenges, as seen in how the whole neighbourhood comes together to set up Alyssa’s last-minute art exhibition in the heart of the estate itself. While some of these portrayed solutions can feel contrived at times, the immense heart put into them is nevertheless unmistakable.
Back to the midterm at the start of the article. Let’s be real: you bomb it. Oh well. Anyway, there’s nothing you can do besides pick yourself up and tell yourself you’ll do better next time. Maybe grab a beer, or a Hot Cheeto Martini, the way Dreux and Alyssa do – whatever works to take the edge off. After all, it’s just one of them days.