09_11原文

If there’s one film from the 1960s that would not seem necessary to remake, it’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, the 1967 Oscar-winner in which Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn play a couple whose liberal ideals are tested by their daughter’s decision to marry a black doctor (Sidney Poitier). Dinner was made in an era in which mixed-race marriages were uncommon and even illegal in some states (the Supreme Court overturned1 anti-miscegenation2 laws that prevented such unions around the same time the movie opened).

That puts director Kevin Rodney Sullivan’s Guess Who on thin ice3 at the start. While contemporary parents might still have misgivings4or concerns about their daughter dating outside her race, that choice probably wouldn’t spark the same kind of handwringing5, tearful anguish it did in 1967.

But before we all congratulate ourselves on having come so fa r on the road to racial equality, Guess Who holds up a bright yellow “yield” sign, reminding us that there are still some sizable potholes6 we have to maneuver around.

In its first half, as Theresa Jones (Zoe Saldana) and her fiance, Simon Green (Ashton Kutcher), travel to spend the weekend with her father Percy Jones (Bernie Mac) and her mother Marilyn (Judith Scott), Simon learns that Theresa has told Percy and Marilyn all “the important things” about him, but neglected to mention that he is white. Almos t immediately after they’re introduced, Percy disapproves of Simon and gives him grief about everything he does and says, while Theresa and Marilyn attempt to smooth things over.

There is one crucial area in which Guess Who improves on Dinner, and that’s in its portrait of Theresa, who claims to want total honesty but doesn’t always tell the whole truth herself. In Dinner, Katharine Houghton played this part as a self-righteous brat7; it was a challenge to believe that someone as intelligent and thoughtf ul as Poitier’s character could be attracted to her. But Saldana finds both the independent-minded adult and the uncertain young woman that coexist in Theresa’s heart, creating someone much more well-rounded and credible.

The screenplay warms up the audience with silly situations: Simon and Percy keep finding disturbing songs like Brother Louie, Walk on the Wild Side and theever-ghastly Ebony and Ivory on the radio; the men face off on a go-kart8 track; Percy insists on sleeping in the basement with Simon to prevent any late-night hanky-panky9, etc. While there are a few laughs to be had at the escalating tensions between hot-headed Percy and eager-to-please Simon, the filmmakers are basically pitching softballs.

But during the course of a family dinner, Guess Who finally gets gutsy10 as Simon is coerced11into telling some of the “black jokes” he claims to find “simple-minded, crude and unfunny.” The non-PC jokes, and the reactions they inspire, push the envelope of what’s considered socially acceptable, creating a scene that’s both uproarious12 and uncomfortable at the same time.

From this point on, director Sullivan pushes his cast to move beyond easy laughs and find the not-so-funny truths and perceptions that often keep people from different backgroun ds at arm’s length.