Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Composite Score: 81.5
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton, Cecil Kellaway, Beah Richards, Roy Glenn, and Isabel Sanford
Director: Stanley Kramer
Writer: William Rose
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance
MPAA Rating: Approved
Box Office: $56.67 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner tells the story of two sets of parents in the late 1960s coming to grips with the fact that their children are in love with someone of a different race. From that basic explanation, it sounds like something with a message that we’ve mostly moved past as a society, and from a very basic level, we have – interracial couples are much more common and socially acceptable now than ever before. However, at its heart, the film is a story about acceptance, morality, love, and bravery in the face of a resistant society. These things keep the film relevant despite its somewhat dated premise.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
The film’s premise is rather dated, and that creates some issues with the portrayal of certain characters. The Drayton family has a maid, who is a black woman, whose characterization in the film feels wrong in a modern context. She is the person most suspicious of Sidney Poitier’s Dr. John Prentice and confronts him rather intensely, calling him “Boy” and saying she’ll do anything to protect Joey’s feelings. Clearly, this was an attempt to portray feelings in the black community from the 1960s, but now, it is a problematic trope of a black character who exists only to support the white characters and put the other black characters down. Her qualms are clearly unfounded, and she is not held up as a model to follow, but still the trope is the issue.
The other big issue, again brought about by the dated premise, is that John’s love for Joanna has to be justified by his numerous qualifications – a doctor, well-respected lecturer, former CDC chair, etc. While their love for each other is ultimately what sways the parents to support their relationship and marriage in the end, it feels like the Draytons may not have given the relationship any thought at all had he not been so qualified. I might be painting the story in a somewhat unfavorable light, but it is a read that comes through as you watch the film.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
Firstly, this film is well-acted across the board, with many of the performances also receiving awards nominations and/or wins. In particular, Katharine Hepburn’s portrayal of Joey’s mother Christina received the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Spencer Tracy was nominated posthumously for playing Joey’s father; Beah Richards was nominated for her role as John’s mother, and Cecil Kellaway received a nomination for playing the Drayton family’s friend Monsignor Ryan. These portrayals and even those of the young lovers by Poitier and Houghton help sell the film. They run the gamut of opinions and emotions in the film, and each is well-deserving of the accolades they received. Katharine Hepburn’s win makes so much sense throughout the film, but her best scene is easily the one where she fires her assistant for bigotry; that lady was acting acting!
Thematically, the film continues to resonate. In particular, its challenge of people’s moral stances in the face of actually having to act on them. Joey’s parents are portrayed as pillars of the San Francisco community, Matt operating an openly liberal newspaper for most of his adult life, and both of them supporting the Civil Rights movement and being opposed to bigotry in theory. Nonetheless, when their daughter brings home a black man and says she wants to marry him, they react with resistance, especially Matt. It reflects Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” in its challenge of the “white moderate,” which remains a challenge in the modern age. We see today people calling for more than just words from political figures; people want action, especially when the things these people claim to favor are being challenged. I had a thought while watching the film – “Finally, a movie about liberal/centrist parents accepting and embracing their children’s leftist ideologies.” Obviously, that is a bit of a stretch, but the sentiment of asking people to actually act on their values beyond mere “thoughts and prayers” continues to be relevant today.
Consistently well-acted and written with universally impactful themes, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner manages to impress despite some not-so-well-aged tropes and facets from its premise. The film outshines the era in which it is set by communicating universal truths and continuing to challenge people to action. It speaks to the truth of love’s power over hate and of the victory of progress over bigotry. Certainly, it has earned its place as one of the Greatest Films of All Time.
