Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

1967.

#99 / Unlisted

Winner of 2 Academy Awards.

Joey Drayton (Katharine Houghton) suprises her parents by bringing home her fiancé, who is black.

Sarah: I was so happy to see this movie was not on the revised AFI list. Plot-wise it sounds like just the type of movie that would be a classic. A complex tale about a family being challenged and surprised by their daughter's choices. Will they be accepting, or is this change just too new? Great drama, right?

No. This movie is not complex. Mr. and Mrs. Drayton (Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn) spend time being quietly uncomfortable with their daughter marrying a black man, but eventually they come around. However, once they do come around, they never question anything about the relationship. They don't find it troublesome that the couple has known each other for barely over a week, or that John (Sidney Poitier) has a job in a very dangerous part of Africa, or that the marriage means the couple will move far from San Francisco to Switzerland. No. These things don't matter, because damnit, the Draytons are accepting.

GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER never explores fully the complexities of race in the sixties. It is unclear why Mr. Drayton changes his opinion, or why he was against the union in the first place. The film is too blatant in presenting a problem and too subtle in fixing. Perhaps that is why it lost it's spot on the AFI list.

Eddie: I think that what Sarah's neglecting to realize is that this is precisely the type of movie that white America wants to see - both in the 1960s and now. John is well-educated and articulate and not the least bit threatening to any of the white characters in the film. America loves this type of black character, and Hollywood does, too. Don't believe me? Let's look at the tale of the tape. In seventy-one years, the Academy has only awarded one Oscar to a black role that threatened the status quo - Denzel Washington in TRAINING DAY - and that was only after snubbing him when he played Malcolm X and Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER is what it is - enjoyable and light. Its idealistic ambitions don't hold up over time, but that doesn't make it any less funny. (Only Ashton Kutcher can do that.)

Why You Should See It: For Eddie, it's the comedy between Joey and her parents. Sarah, on the other hand, thinks you shouldn't see this movie at all.