ONE OF THEM DAYS: The First Guilty Pleasure of 2025

By Harrison J. Bahe

Best friends and roommates Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA) are about to have One of Them Days. When they discover Alyssa’s boyfriend has blown their rent money, the duo finds themselves going to extremes in a comical race against the clock to avoid eviction and keep their friendship intact.

A guilty pleasure is defined as something, such as a movie, television program, or piece of music, that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not generally held in high regard. One of Them Days is a guilty pleasure. January has always been considered the dumping ground of Hollywood where movies that don’t particularly fit into a special date of interest or may even be considered a box office drawl are dropped. Sure, some films get expanded releases in January even though they were technically released the previous year and sometimes the unspoken rule of the dumping ground is broken, yes, but the truth remains: January is the month in which they dump a movie they may not feel confident about into theaters. One of Them Days feels like it falls into that category.

One of Them Days isn’t exactly shooting for the moon here. In fact, many of its jokes fall flat and don’t quite hit the mark. The film follows one of my favorite comedic tropes though in which our main characters must do a series of quests and over come unexpected obstacles to achieve one single unifying goal. In this case, our two main character Dreux and Alyssa must do anything they can to get their rent paid on time. This includes selling some classic Nikes to selling blood to attempting to get a loan to dodging a trigger-happy gangster. Each task is further exacerbated by either a character’s flaw or just through some major misunderstanding. However, like most comedies, the typical rise and fall of the genre hits their marks and inevitably ends on a high note.

One of Them Days is a nice callback to black comedies from the 90s like Friday and B.A.P.S. The comedy is a bit wonky and misses the mark most of the time and they even found a way to under utilize comedy legend Katt Williams. However, the chemistry between Keke Palmer and SZA is superb and was the only thing keeping this film together. The casting of SZA may have been a publicity move as I know people who are watching the movie solely due to her involvement. That’s not a slight against SZA as she is particularly good in this film, but Janelle James steals the show as a nervous phlebotomist technician. It is an alright movie that will easily burn some time on a slow day which is why I give One of Them Days:

3 Paintings out of 5

One of them Days is Rated R for language throughout, sexual material and brief drug use.