Percy pursues Simon and brings him back to Theresa, and they reconcile at Percy and Marilyn’s anniversary party. With the help of his personal assistant Reggie, Percy tries to learn as much information about Simon as he can as well as creating the ideal black boyfriend for Theresa instead of revealing her boyfriend is white. Reggie manages to convince Simon to reveal that he lied about being a NASCAR pit crew member and also that he needs a $50,000 loan. Simon discovers Percy’s lies just as Reggie reveals that Simon quit his job. Immediately, Percy goes to tell Theresa this new information; however, Simon claims he was not fired and instead quit.
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Like Tracy and Hepburn, they live in an expensive home in an upscale suburb. “You didn’t tell me your parents were black!” Simon says when he meets them, in a lame attempt at humor. The black cab driver (Mike Epps) looks in the rear-view mirror and says, “It’s gonna matter.” Parents did not come quite so willingly to that conclusion in 1967, which is why Stanley Kramer’s film, now often dismissed as liberal piety, took some courage to make. No doubt it worked better because the African-American who came to dinner was played by Poitier as a famous doctor who lived in Switzerland.
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Instead, Percy allows Simon to sleep in his basement on the couch, where Percy also sleeps so he can keep an eye manga quiz on him even though the pull-out bed hurts his back.
The next morning, Percy and Simon find Marilyn and Theresa at Marilyn’s sister’s house to apologize. While Marilyn and Percy reconcile, Simon and Theresa break up and he leaves. On the day of his anniversary, Theresa tells her father that she and Simon were intending to marry. After wondering why a man intending to get married would quit his job, Percy realizes that Simon quit his job due to his boss’ disapproval of interracial relationships.
Bernie Mac, who often cheerfully goes over the top in his roles, here provides a focused and effective performance as a father who would subject a boyfriend of any race to merciless scrutiny. He has a moment of sudden intuition about Simon that is perfectly realized and timed. Ashton Kutcher is not the actor Sidney Poitier was, but the movie doesn’t require him to be; his assignment is to be acceptable and sympathetic in a situation where he is coached through the hazards by his girlfriend.
When Theresa (Zoë Saldaña) brings fiancé Simon Green (Ashton Kutcher) home for her parents 25th wedding anniversary, she’s neglected to mention one tiny detail – he’s white. Determined to break his daughter’s engagement, Percy Jones (Bernie Mac) does everything he can to make Simon feel apart of the family, from running his credit report to locking him in the basement at night. But when Percy gleefully exposes Simon’s most embarrassing secret, it leads to an outrageous series of comic complications that only goes to prove that with a dad like Percy Jones, father doesn’t always know best. Is it, perhaps, because of the intense pressure we ourselves put upon these people—even more when they just happen to be romantically involved?
A movie like this is ostensibly made for the fans, and yet it’s bold enough to propose that maybe we should all, ahem, calm down. It does, and the movie is a little uneasy about how to deal with that fact. Percy has already run a credit check on Simon and discovered (a) that he has an impressive net worth, but (b) is newly unemployed. When he finds out Simon hasn’t told Theresa about his joblessness, Percy decides that the young man is not to be trusted.
Instead, we got unfunny scenes at a go-cart track (they go off the track!) and at an all-women party (they get tipsy and trash men!). The movie focuses on the two men, to such a degree that the story synopsis on the movie’s Web site literally never even mentions any of the women characters — not Theresa, not her mother Marilyn, not her feisty sister Keisha (Kellee Stewart). If we heard a lot about strong black women after “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” here we have a movie about a strong black man and about male bonding that has more to do with corporate than racial politics. Zoe Saldana, a true beauty, is lovable and charming as Theresa, but in her home, she’s upstaged by her father.
Theresa Jones takes her boyfriend, Simon Green, to her parents’ home to meet them on their 25th wedding anniversary, planning to reveal that the couple are engaged. Theresa’s father, Percy, dislikes Simon almost immediately not only because of his race, but also because he lies to him about being on the NASCAR pit crew for Jeff Gordon, not realizing that Percy is one of Gordon’s biggest fans. Percy also happens to stumble on Simon jokingly wearing Theresa’s lingerie while the couple is playing around in her childhood bedroom. This very loose remake of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner reverses the mixed-race couple situation, with the white boyfriend (Ashton Kutcher) who describes himself as “pigment-challenged” and who must get the approval of the black girl’s father (Bernie Mac). There are also some other half-hearted attempts at plot developments that are around long enough to be annoying but not long enough to get resolved. Percy takes Simon to race go-carts and Simon tries to keep everyone from finding out that he quit his job.
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Once the public gets wind of it, however, the rumors start to roll in, and Bowyn and Drew will have to decide whether or not they’re taking the leap for real. Because we’ll never know for sure until the tell-all memoirs start coming out, we write fan fiction in our heads about their lives, speculating about every public sighting and every private encounter. The most secluded ones get the most scrutiny, which is why there are a million Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce-“inspired” movies coming out right now. So far, the closest to reality (up to a point) is Lifetime’s holiday-themed rom-com Christmas in the Spotlight, which premieres Nov. 23.
And if the movie had spent more time walking that tightrope between the acceptable and the offensive, between what we have in common and what divides us, it would have been more daring. Instead, it uses sitcom and soap opera formulas that allow the characters easy ways out. (The scene where Perry finds Simon wearing Theresa’s negligee is painfully awkward.) No one in the audience of any race is going to feel uncomfortable about much of anything on the screen. Simon and Theresa are indeed in love, indeed seem compatible, indeed have us hoping things will work out for them. But Percy is smart and suspicious, with a way of setting traps for the unsuspecting younger man. One of the film’s best scenes, because it reflects fundamental truths, comes at dinner, when Simon says he doesn’t approve of the “ethnic jokes” that “some people” tell at work.
Simon refuses, but then he decides, in a fatal spasm of political correctness, that it “empowers” the joke if he doesn’t tell it. In “Guess Who,” the white fiance is not quite the world-class catch that Poitier was. Named Simon and played by Ashton Kutcher, who must have had an interesting evening when he came home for dinner with Demi Moore, he is a Wall Street trader with a bright future, who has suddenly quit his job. Theresa’s parents are Percy (Bernie Mac), a bank loan officer, and Marilyn (Judith Scott).
He is also not to be trusted with Theresa’s body, at least not under Percy’s roof; her father insists that Simon sleep on the sofa-bed in the basement, and to be sure he stays there, Percy sleeps in the same bed with him. This leads to several scenes which are intended to be funny, but sit there uncomfortably on the screen, because the humor comes from a different place than the real center of the film. No one does choleric better than Bernie Mac and it is always fun to see him get steamed. Kutcher manages to stay out of Mac’s way (and his own) and Zoe Saldana shows warmth and sweetness as Theresa. Kellee Stewart as Theresa’s sister gets to show more sass and sparkle, especially when she explains how Theresa’s relationship with Simon improved her own life. The movie would have been much more fun if she had been the fiancée, and perhaps if we got a look at Simon’s family as well.