The maxim that Less Is More gets taken for a test drive by Guess Who, a lightweight multiplex seat-filler that’s a loose remake of a motion picture routinely tagged with the label of “Hollywood classic.”
Director Stanley Kramer’s 1967 Christmas release Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner turned out to be a gargantuan moneymaker (second only to The Graduate as the year’s top grosser) and earned Oscars for lead actress Katharine Hepburn and screenwriter William Rose (on top of eight additional nominations). In more recent times, the movie even inched its way into the #99 slot on the American Film Institute’s “100 Greatest Films” list. Yet not every reaction to the film has been as enthusiastic. There were some dissenting votes among the critical corps of the day, and Harvard Lampoon‘s long-running “Movie Worsts” awards named it the worst picture of 1967, over such contenders as Valley of the Dolls and Doctor Dolittle.
The Lampoon was overreacting, of course, but their designation nevertheless makes no less sense than the AFI’s absolute endorsement on the other end of the spectrum. Time has been anything but kind to Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, which seems more hollow and condescending with every passing year. Striving to be an important “message” movie about the absurdity of racism, the film cast Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy as a progressive couple whose values are put to the test when their daughter (Katharine Houghton, Hepburn’s real-life niece) announces that she intends to marry a black doctor (Sidney Poitier). Well-meaning to a fault, the movie’s main attribute when viewed today is the typically fine work by Tracy, who invests himself in the project even though he knew his lease on life was about to run out (the actor died 10 days after filming was completed).
The new Guess Who won’t be up for any awards. It won’t land on any 10 Best lists. And while it may fare respectably at the box office, it won’t emerge as one of the year’s biggest moneymakers. But so what? When all is said and done, the picture is actually an improvement over its faux-classic predecessor: It’s funnier, more relaxed and better paced. And while Dinner often seemed tentative about tackling any inflammatory issues head-on (for a “controversial” picture, it’s thoroughly timid and unthreatening), this new film includes at least one scene in which audience members are directly challenged on their own code of conduct as it pertains to race relations.
Applying role reversal to the original template, Guess Who stars Bernie Mac as Percy Jones, a bank loan officer who’s on the verge of throwing a 25th wedding anniversary party with his wife Marilyn (Judith Scott) when he learns that their lovely daughter Theresa (Zoe Saldana) is coming home with her new boyfriend in tow. As Percy states at one point, he’s expecting his child to bring home a Denzel Washington; instead, she drags in some punk’d white boy named Simon Green (Ashton Kutcher). Percy has always felt that no man is good enough for his little girl, but the fact that Simon’s white only adds to his anxiety. Percy naturally insists that his dislike of Simon isn’t because he’s Caucasian, but his actions and comments reveal otherwise. For his part, Simon is so intimidated by his lover’s father that his fumbling attempts to ingratiate himself only make matters worse.
Many of the gags cooked up by the trio of scripters are predictable: Percy catches Simon and Theresa in what appears to be a compromising position; “Ebony and Ivory” blares from the car stereo as Percy and Simon take an uncomfortable ride together; etc. Yet what makes these scenes work — indeed, what makes the whole concoction go down rather easily — are the slow-burn reactions by Bernie Mac, one of those rare comedians (like Walter Matthau and Cary Grant) who can elicit laughs simply by eyeballing the other characters. As for Kutcher, he’s not bad here, even if he never quite takes control of the project like his co-star (remove Mac and you have no movie; remove Kutcher and you can still replace him with any of a dozen other pretty boys).
Guess Who is more interested in doling out laughs than harping on any heavy themes, but there does exist one sequence that points out the perpetual difficulty in applying humor to racially sensitive issues. Egged on by Percy, Simon shares a handful of black jokes with the members of the Jones household as they’re all seated around the dinner table. Simon’s initial barrage unexpectedly meets the approval of his black hosts — when he answers his own gag about why Adam and Eve can’t be black (“Have you ever tried to take a rib from a black man?”), even Percy’s white-wary dad (Hal Williams) can’t control his laughter — but as he presses on, we tense up, afraid that one of his jokes will cross the line between benign joshing and hurtful slander. But where exactly is that line, and how can it possibly be the same for every person? The scene resonates beyond its surface theatrics, bringing into focus the immense difficulty for people of all colors to get along with sense of humor kept in check but not fully stifled.
Ultimately, though, for all its attention to the racial divide, Guess Who isn’t as interested in being the new Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner as it is in taking its place as the next Meet the Parents. In fact, the makers of Parents might be more apt to sue for plagiarism than the creators of Dinner, given the extent that many situations and gags are recycled from that Ben Stiller blockbuster (fortunately, these bits retain their bite). Exploring issues pertaining to blacks and whites is fine, but as we all know, the color that truly matters in Hollywood is green. So just as Meet the Parents begat Meet the Fockers, if Guess Who turns out to be a big hit, expect its own sequel, Meet the Honkies, somewhere down the line.
This article appears in Mar 23-29, 2005.
