Review of One of Them Days, directed by Lawrence Lamont

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently fell into a spell of unemployment probably during the worst time to be unemployed, as it was very hard to find a job. I was applying to hundreds of jobs, getting interviews, but no offer was manifesting for me in the near future. So during this time, I had a lot of free time, and spent a good chunk of it chipping away at the blog.

Back in the day, when I had a car (a kid totaled it a while back, and because I was unemployed, I didn’t want to take on a car payment while I did contract/freelance work remotely), I used to go to the movie theater two or three times a week. I had AMC A List, and because my county had quite a few AMC options, and I went to New York often, I had the chance to go and see whatever I wanted.

I ended up canceling my A List because I had no car and I thought I was moving abroad, which fell through after waiting four months and being told that it was going to happen. I missed my A List dearly during this time, especially as there were so many movies I wanted to see and no longer had the chance.

One of Them Days was one of those movies. I told my sister I wanted to see it, but then she was saying she didn’t want to see it, so I stepped back and watched it go in theaters. So imagine my delight when it was added to Netflix. I ended up watching the movie the same day it was released on streaming.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble in the introduction.

Two best friends and roommates try to get the rent money by the end of the day, when they’re set to be evicted.

Our main characters in this movie are Alyssa, who’s an artist, and Dreux, a waitress. They’re best friends and roommates, and their other roommate is Alyssa’s boyfriend Keshawn, who doesn’t have much of a future ahead of him. At the beginning of the month, though, Alyssa and Dreux are shocked when their landlord shows up and says they need to pay their $1,500 rent by 6 PM.

They thought they had already paid, but learn that Keshawn took the rent money and fled. They follow his tracks and found him with another woman (turns out he was cheating), and a fight breaks out. Keshawn ends up admitting he spent the money on his own company, and the girl he was cheating with swears she’ll get revenge after getting hit by a truck door.

The girls are unable to get a loan to pay their rent because their credit scores suck, and Dreux goes to donate blood for money. However, when Alyssa finds out, she picks a fight with the nurse there, and all of the blood Dreux just donated goes to waste. They go to eat at a fast food restaurant, where they run into one of Dreux’s newest flames: Maniac.

Alyssa leaves behind the duo as they flirt, but they Dreux and Maniac get a call saying to get Alyssa and rescue her. They find her on a utility pole trying to grab some Air Jordans, but when she grabs them, she’s electrocuted by the wires. The Jordans do sell for good money, and Dreux prepares for an interview.

She’s being considered for a position to become the franchise manager, and things go really well. However, Keshawn and Berniece have tracked down the girls, and another fight breaks out. Dreux, despite doing well in the interview, goes out into the fight, but Berniece takes their money and runs.

Alyssa and Dreux start verbally fighting with each other, but then they get a call from a gangster, who apparently owned the Air Jordans. He wants $5,000 or he’s going to kill them that night. The girls head back to their apartment to find all of their stuff on the side of the road—they’ve been evicted.

When their neighbor Bethany, who seems like a bit of an airhead, sees one of Alyssa’s paintings, she asks to buy ones. The girls realize that Bethany has a following on social media and can help them sell the other pieces of art, and they host an art gallery in the complex to raise money to pay the gangster. That works for them, and the hiring manager from earlier tells Dreux she’s impressed by what happened here at the gallery and that she’ll call Dreux soon.

The gangster rolls up for his money, and Alyssa instructs Dreux to stall him so she has time. Guns are pulled out though and the girls are forced to go to their old apartment, where Keshawn is waiting with candles. The gangster follows them and knocks himself out, causing the apartment to go up in flames.

Firefighters rescue everyone in the room, and we see Maniac is one of them. The gangster is arrested, Maniac and Dreux seem to become an item, and Alyssa decides to leave Keshawn behind.

The movie ends with Dreux becoming a franchise manager and being good at her job, and Alyssa becomes a well-known painter in Los Angeles. They are able to afford a nicer apartment with good furniture, too.

Overall Thoughts

I describe this movie as a chaotic film in the best way possible. This is a movie about friendship and what it takes to continue being friends and civil even when the circumstances aren’t the best. The dynamic between Dreux and Alyssa was truly the heart and highlight of the movie, comedic moments aside.

Despite that, this wasn’t my favorite movie, but it was one that I had a good time watching. It’s fun, there’s a lot of humor packed into it, and while some of the scenarios are definitely not realistic, I could see the events of the movie actually happening in real life.

Go watch this one if you’re interested though! It’s a great film to watch on a Friday night if you want something (kind of) lighthearted. Plus if you’re in the United States, I was able to watch it on Netflix (at the time of writing this).

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