Keke Palmer and SZA's 'One of Them Days' checks the boxes for buddy comedies

Keke Palmer says her new film with SZA continues a tradition of side-splitting Black comedies with an important message.

Audiences first got a glimpse of the multihyphenate actor and entertainer Keke Palmer and the multiplatinum, Grammy-winning artist SZA together on “Saturday Night Live” in 2022. Now they are box office queens with their film “One of Them Days” defying predictions to become the No. 1 comedy in the country, coming in second only to Disney’s latest “Lion King” offering, “Mufasa” from Barry Jenkins, during the four-day MLK holiday weekend. 

Inviting comparisons to the 1995 classic buddy comedy, “Friday,” “One of Them Days,” written by Syreeta Singleton, follows two best friends and roommates — Palmer’s straitlaced Dreux and SZA’s free-spirited Alyssa — as they race against the clock to raise their rent money or be kicked out on the sidewalk with all their belongings.  

Palmer, who produced the film with Issa Rae, told NBC News that she signed on to the film because “it felt familiar to me — a story about two girls growing up in an L.A. neighborhood trying to figure out how to make rent, but with all the hijinks and also all the lessons they learned along the way. It reminded me of the kind of films that I watched growing up about friendship, usually starring two guys, though.”

Palmer said she jumped at the chance to act in and produce a movie that “centered women in a way that I love,” while paying homage to other films in the genre like “Let’s Do It Again” with Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby, “Bad Boys” with Martin Lawrence and Will Smith, and plenty of others. 

Taking on a role behind the camera for a feature film stretched Palmer, who was last seen on the big screen in “Nope,” from writer and director Jordan Peele. “I think the challenge was staying in it, because it took a long time to do,” she explained.  

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/keke-palmer-sza-one-days-buddy-comedy-rcna188404

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