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. Percy asks him to provide a sample. Simon refuses, but then he decides, in a fatal spasm of political correctness, that it "empowers" the joke if he doesn't tell it.
So he does. ("How do we know Adam and Eve weren't black? Ever try to get a rib away from a black man?") Not everyone around the table may think this is funny, but they all laugh -- except Theresa, who senses the danger. Percy asks for another joke, and Simon obliges. And a third. Encouraged by Percy, Simon inevitably tells one joke too many -- one that isn't funny, but racist. A terrible silence falls. Percy leaves the table. Simon is aghast. "I should never have told that joke," he says to Theresa. "You should never have started," she says. His mistake was to tell the first one. But she forgives him for his mistake: "He dared you."
He did. 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.
That said, "Guess Who" works efficiently on its chosen level. 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.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46grJ6ro2LEqbuMa2dpbQ%3D%3D