Comedy with a capital C

I try to catch remakes of films because I always get a kick out of comparing these to the original versions.

It was with much excitement therefore that I went to see the currently-showing Guess Who – only to find out that it is not exactly a remake of the 1967 Stanley Kramer film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, which is about an elderly white couple (Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn) who has to come to terms with the decision of their daughter Katharine Houghton (Hepburn’s niece in real life) to marry a black scientist (Sidney Poitier).

Guess Who, of course, is still about an interracial marriage – but done in reverse. It’s the African-American family that’s not very comfortable about one of them marrying a white man.

But whereas Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a comedy drama, Guess Who is an out-and-out comedy with a capital C. (It’s actually done more along the lines of Meet the Parents).

In the story set in the suburbs of Cranford New Jersey, a relatively well-off black couple (Bernie Mac and Judith Scott) is celebrating their silver wedding anniversary with a big party. Complications set in when their daughter Zoe Zaldana brings home her white boyfriend (Ashton Kutcher) who is having problems with his career (he just quit his job at Wall Street and is having difficulty finding another one).

His real problem, however, concerns his future father-in-law, who dislikes him at first sight. (The family wasn’t warned by the daughter that she was bringing home a white prospective husband.)

The situation even gets more complicated when Ashton and Zoe fight over the fact that he kept his career problems a secret from her. And that’s not all. Even Judith loses her patience with her husband and decides to cancel the big wedding anniversary party.

Of course, this is a comedy and for sure you know that the party will still happen in the end (complete with dancing and fireworks). But how things are resolved among the characters (especially between Ashton and Bernie) in this film is what’s interesting to find out.

Unlike in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, which was one of the first films to tackle the then delicate subject of interracial marriage, Guess Who no longer dwells much on the issue of racism – and wisely so because we live in different times now. (But then, who are we kidding? There is still racial discrimination in America, except that nobody can express this openly since everyone is so concerned now with being politically correct – at least on the outside).

Whatever racist remarks there are about African-Americans (supposedly the politically correct term for blacks now) have been turned to humor (no, not black comedy, you wise guys) in this movie.

Yes, Guess Who succeeds as a comedy – although I have to say that in some comic scenes, the viewer is sometimes ahead of the scriptwriter (like in the scene where Bernie Mac mistakes the black cab driver for his daughter’s boyfriend).

It’s a good thing the actors do very well in their respective roles – particularly Ashton Kutcher, whose energetic performance brightens up every scene in the film. (In Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, by the way, Katharine Hepburn won the second of her four Oscar trophies.)

The wonderful humor of Guess Who – over-all – actually prevented me from getting disappointed over the fact that it’s not an exact remake of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

Okay, so it’s not a remake. However, I’m still tempted to make comparisons.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner must have been dear to the hearts of Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn fans because it was their final team-up since Tracy was seriously ill while doing this and, in fact, died within weeks after completing his scenes.

But although comparisons between the two films are unfair, I’d still like to say that Guess Who is better made than the 1967 Stanley Kramer film. Although not a classic, Guess Who at least is fun to watch. In the case of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, let’s face it, it made waves then only because it was daring.