One of Them Days 2025 Movie Review Trailer

 Comedies are hard to come by these days. They either don't exist at all (a fact that makes me pretty bitter because who doesn't like to laugh?) or if they do exist, they're just plain bad. That's why I was surprised that One of Them Days got made. The film, directed by Lawrence Lamont from a script by Syreeta Singleton, is an old-fashioned buddy comedy that we don't see much of. While that sometimes works against it, One of Them Days is fun and delightfully absurd. Keke Palmer and SZA are great together and it's their chemistry and interactions that largely work.

The idea came to me while watching One of Them Days, an enjoyable buddy movie that has the exact contours and hairy charm of a stoner comedy without actually participating in it. Like Craig and Smokey, Jesse and Chester, and Harold and Kumar before them, Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA) are a pair of cool underdogs with a seemingly simple task — raising $1,500 for rent before the day is out — that becomes an excuse for a series of outrageous escapades. Not that the longtime roommates and best friends seem opposed to relaxing in Mary Jane’s company, but between Dreux’s anxiety about an upcoming job interview; Alyssa’s freeloading boyfriend, Keshawn (Joshua David Neal); and the nine hours they have to avoid eviction, the pair simply can’t afford to get high. 

Director: Lawrence Lamont
Writer: Syreeta Singleton
Stars: Keke Palmer, SZA, Vanessa Bell Calloway

Plus, marijuana’s mild disrepute has worn off — at least in California, where it’s been legal for nearly a decade, sold in Apple Store-style emporiums to overwhelmed mothers in search of sleeping pills and wellness pals looking to microdose. Much like the rundown Baldwin Village apartment complex that Dreux and Alyssa live in, marijuana is gentrifying, and the characters don’t need it as a common ground. Their bond is built on other things, like a shared history, affection, and a deep familiarity with economic insecurity.

Rather than reveling in laziness, the characters in One of Them Days are desperate to get ahead and escape the grind of living paycheck to paycheck — a possibility that continues to elude them despite Dreux’s schemes and Alyssa’s demonstration. It’s a testament to the film, which was written by Rap Sh!t showrunner Syreeta Singleton and directed by Lawrence Lamont, that it’s able to balance the exhaustion its characters feel with the silliness of the episodes they find themselves in.

 It’s actually a testament to the cast, an absurdist parade of funny people ranging from comedians like Katt Williams and Lil Rel Howery to newcomers like Aziza Scott, who steals the show as local villain Berniece. As Alyssa, an artist who falls somewhere between free spirit and frivolity, SZA fits into her first acting role like someone who’s been doing this all along. With her voluptuous form and mermaid mane, she looks like a squiggle of sensual contentment when Dreux finds her exasperatedly sprawled out in bed, having broken up there with Keshawn when she was supposed to be talking to him about moving in. And as the feisty Dreux, who’s been waiting tables during the night shift at Norms after failing to finish her business degree, Palmer makes good use of a charisma that could power entire city blocks.

Honestly, watching One of Them Days, you start to wonder why Palmer isn’t one of the biggest stars in the world by now, though part of the problem is that she’s a creature of comedy, and studios rarely make them anymore. Even when the script and pacing falter in this film, as they definitely do on occasion, she manages to wring laughs out of scenes with off-kilter physicality and surprising line readings. 

She taps into a gasp of “He knew how to clean up all this time!” when she discovers Keshawn has absconded with her sneaker collection and what was supposed to be her rent money. She turns a run-in with her crush, Maniac (Patrick Cage), at her neighbor’s unofficial corner store into a masterfully choreographed moment of lustful awkwardness. Dreux and Alyssa have a dynamic that seems familiar: Dreux, the uptight one seeking control, and Alyssa, the laid-back one urging her friend to care less. When the film opens, it invites you to wonder if Alyssa — whose bad decisions range from being foolish enough to trust Keshawn with her rent to taking a pair of high-tension sneakers belonging to a local gangster — is holding Dreux back. But by the end, Alyssa’s outlandish outlook seems about as reasonable as Dreux’s more traditional attempts to get ahead, when the game is so rigged that every wrong move seems to carry a lifetime ban.

Watch One of Them Days 2025 Movie Trailer