2019 Blind Spot Series: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

You might have come here looking for my entry into the weekly blogathon, Thursday Movie Picks hosted by Wanderer at Wandering Through the Shelves. The truth is, this is one of those television weeks that I've got nothing for. However, it's also the last day of February. That makes it the perfect time to actually get up a review of the film I watched for this month's Blind Spot Series. As usual, it's hosted by Sofia at Returning Videotapes. To her, I say I'm working on getting these posted before the last day of the month, but no promises. Let's get into this month's pick.

Why did I pick it? The easy thing to say is that it's Black History Month. That, however, is not true. February is just the month in which I chose to watch it, not the reason for watching. It was on my radar long before I had a blog to worry about the specific month I'm going to write about a particular film. In fact, I have trouble remembering a time when I wasn't aware of this movie's existence. It was always held up as at least a small part of the nation's paradigm shift in regards to race-relations during the 1960s. Clips of it showed up on all sorts of movie related shows. Somehow, though, I never found myself sitting face-to-face with the entire movie until about ten years ago. I was up late, flipping channels, and came across it about five minutes after it had started and settled in to watch it. I felt wide awake, but obviously wasn't. I made it about another five minutes before I was watching whatever movie was playing on the inside of my eyelids. Fast-forward to a few months back. My daughters asked me to take them to the mall and promised it would be a short trip. So, while they bopped around the young girl fashion stores, I went into Barnes & Noble to kill some time. Usually, the movies there are way overpriced, but I found a rather nice blu-ray edition of this film for ten bucks and swooped it up. Fast-forward again to the present. With my memory completely clear of whatever happened in the five minutes I saw years ago, I popped it in at a decent time of day.

We meet young, head strong, Joanna (Katharine Houghton) and her older, not as forthright boyfriend, John (Sidney Poitier). We learn they intend to be married soon, despite having only met ten days ago. They've come to San Francisco for him to meet her parents and inform them of their news. Of course, the sticking fact isn't the brevity of their courtship, nor the age gap (she's 23, he's 37), but the fact that she's white and John is black. In 1967, this is a big deal. John understands that a marriage is setting themselves and their future children up to be shunned by both whites and blacks. He's rightfully apprehensive about meeting Joanna's folks for the simple fact she hasn't told them anything about him. They don't even know Joanna and John are coming.

When they arrive, dad is away at work, so mom, played as slyly feisty by Katharine Hepburn, gets the news first. She's taken aback, but ultimately, supportive. The key will be convincing dad, a deeply contemplative Spencer Tracy, when he later bursts in through the front door of his home. After a typical mistaken identity gag, the following introduction, and the exchanging of pleasantries, John and Joanna inform him they intend to marry, no matter what, but must know whether or not they have his blessing by the end of the night when John is off to Switzerland for a big shot medical conference. Much hand-wringing, debating, and pontificating ensues.

One thing that has to be admired about this film is how quickly it gets into its plot. Character personalities are quickly established and the conflict laid bare. This makes it an efficient vehicle, purring as it motors down the highway without wasting any of its 108 minutes. Whatever subplots arise feed directly back into the main story. It is abundantly clear that at this moment, to these people, there is nothing else in the world that matters. That sense of urgency translates to us and keeps us engaged.

The actors help keep us interested, as well. The performances of Hepburn, Houghton, and Tracy are all tremendous. Each proves to be an expert batsman as they swat the pros and cons of this huge dilemma to and fro. Hepburn gives the movie its emotional anchor and does most of the heavy lifting alone, until joined later in the film by Beah Richards as John's mother. Spencer Tracy is the voice of reason, often debating himself, even as he talks to others. He makes us feel the inner turmoil that this day is causing him. Similar to the way Richards's appearance aids Hepburn;s performance, Roy E. Glenn Sr. as John's dad, gives us a more adamant version Tracy's character for him to learn from. Houghton needs no such help. She's plenty fine all by herself raging against the machine, embodying the headstrong arrogance of youth. Occasionally, she gets a bit of an assist from Poitier, but for the most part, she's a wrecking ball swinging in all directions to get others to bend to her will.

You may have noticed I didn't count Poitier among the film's great performances. He's not bad, by any stretch. He's just not asked to do much other than be the elephant in the room. His mere presence is what everyone in the film must react to. Every now and again he gets to join in on the speechifying done by the rest of the cast, but his emotional beats come off as muted compared to the rest. The thing he does best in the movie is simply be Sidney Poitier, an avatar for a dignified, well-spoken black man, undeniably that, but not enough to make whites uncomfortable. It's not as important that he give us a good character as it is that he represent an ideal. The film uses that ideal to confront the hypocrisy often found in white liberalism. It mixes Poitier's persona with a character so indubitably son-in-law material that the (almost) only reason Joanna's parents have not to be happy he's marrying their daughter would have to include an admission of racism. White viewers are backed into the same corner. The strength of this movie lies in how it affects its target audience - whites who espouse liberal views, but seem to draw the line at interracial relationships.

Because John is so nearly perfect, the film actually takes it easy on those people it purports to skewer. John is a boring candidate to debate. A more flawed man may have put the outcome more in jeopardy. Joanna's folks, along with viewers, would have to mull over those shortcomings. Our biases show up in our decisions on which and whose faults to forgive. John's impeccability helps everyone sidestep the very exercise they may need to really test their principles. Think of it as it pertains to today's headlines. Shortly after the news of yet another unarmed black man having been shot to death by the police comes the revelation of any wrong-doing he may have done before that day as if it somehow justifies his murder. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner gives us a guy we struggle to say anything bad about, practically ensuring its own conclusion. It makes the statement it wants to make and won't let John derail it.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner occupies a weird space. It's clearly of its time, yet not as dated as it first appears. Knowing the plot before having ever seen it gave me the ability to be at a safe enough distance from it to notice how much the movie truly forces the issue. You might remember from my synopsis that John and Joanna have only been seeing each other for ten days and that there is a significant enough age gap that it's possible he is closer to her parent's age than hers. For most parents, both of these things are cause for alarm. Here, they're almost mentioned in passing. A more encompassing screenplay would have better weaved these into the narrative. They could, and should, easily be bigger contributors to the decision at hand. As things stand, they may not as well be mentioned. Another aspect that could have been far more interesting is the dynamic between Isabel Sanford's Tillie, the family's black maid, and John. They are very much representatives of opposite sides of the coin. She exhibits the slave mentality fitting of someone stuck in the past. He, of course, is the wave of the future. Tillie is fully against the idea of John's relationship with Joanna. In no uncertain terms, she sees it as Joanna degrading herself and John "getting above himself." She has clearly bought into the idea of white superiority. John's very existence challenges those notions, yet their interactions are limited. Tillie is given a quick lesson mid-movie from Joanna, but there is so much more to mine.

To anyone wanting to see this for the first time the big question is how well does it hold up? It holds up well, for the most part. It shows its age because it simplifies things a bit too much. The topic its addressing, the hypocrisy of white liberals, is still a subject worthy of cinematic examination. This movie feels like the genesis of this. Over the years, its spirit has been co-opted by many movies, proving its importance. In 2005, it was kinda-sorta remade as Guess Who, a lackluster rom-com with the races reversed. The late Bernie Mac plays the ornery dad who disapproves of his daughter's white boyfriend, played by Ashton Kutcher. That one is far more watered down than this. However, the original still feels as if it is boxing with kid gloves in comparison to its spiritual (read: unofficial and unacknowledged) remake, 2017's Get Out. 

It seems hard to imagine now, but it wasn't that long ago when the good folks at General Mills were inundated with hate mail for having the audacity to feature an interracial family in a Cheerios commercial. Now, there are such families in every area of publicly consumed media. None of this means Guess Who's Coming to Dinner has been rendered pointless. While not as poignant as it once was, it still has something to say that's worth hearing. It also remains an important place marker, highlighting how far we've come and how far we haven't.