“A Mediocre Meet the Parents Rehash”

The movie’s title asks a question anyone who’s seen the trailer knows the answer to. Unfortunately, like most movies these days, the best scenes from Guess Who were spoiled in the trailer, which promised a light-hearted romantic comedy dedicated to watching a young white man squirm as he meets the parents of his black girlfriend.

Guess Who is the latest in a long line of feeble attempts at “modernizing” classic movies—in this case, Spencer Tracey’s 1967 melodrama, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Here, races are reversed and Simon Green (Ashton Kutcher) must stare down his girlfriend’s watchdog father, self-styled bank loan officer, Percy Jones (Bernie Mac). At first, Percy can’t stand Simon and does everything in his power to make Simon’s life miserable, including sleeping with him on a hide-a-bed in the basement and padlocking the basement door. Over time, Percy begins warming up to the idea of Simon and his daughter, Theresa (Zoe Saldana), being together, but not before the stubborn pair become embroiled in spats, accidents and a lonely night apart from their sweethearts.

A movie of this kind, clearly, had more social relevance in the turbulent 60’s than it does in present-day America—the racial tension the script seeks to employ has marginal effectiveness in our world of increasing tolerance. As a result, the movie is an insipid comedy that tries to be funny, receiving meager support from its middlebrow premise and anemic screenplay. Granted, there are a few chuckles to be had, but other than Mac and Kutcher’s on-screen chemistry (which is better than Kutcher’s chemistry with Saldana), the film is a ponderous dirge of maudlin moments and slapstick situations—I found myself forcing an occasional laugh just to help the movie along.

Besides borrowing thematically from the aforementioned Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Guess Who also bears a striking resemblance to two other modern films from the same genre: Father of the Bride and Meet the Parents (even the poor sequels to those movies are better than Guess Who). Sad to say, if it wasn’t for Bernie Mac’s pitch-perfect portrayal of the disgruntled, overprotective father, Guess Who wouldn’t even be worth the stock it was filmed on.

With its countless contrivances, predictable plotline and knee-slapping one-liners, Guess Who is a middling comedy that fools audiences into thinking they’ve had a good time, while failing to service them in any significant way. If the producers think they’ve created a feel-good, crowd-pleasing romantic comedy, they should guess again.

Rating: 2

Tags: Comedy, Romance