Review of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) by Remy R — 25 May 2011

Had never seen it.

Loved it, not because it was well-acted (which it was), and not because it was pretty well-wrttien (again, yes), and not because it takes place here in SF in the 60's (which was very cool to see), but because the content was well executed and well-portioned; amazingly for its time, and remarkably poignant over forty years later.

Few great films feel important. This felt important.

It was one of the first films to speak on interracial marriage and watching it today it speaks volumes beyond the singular issue to which it was intentioned. The story is of a well-to-do older liberal couple who come face to face with their principles when their daughter, who they have raised to be a free-thinker and somewhat of a progressionist, brings home a black man and announces she is going to marry him. The dilemma in this case is not the parents being okay with the fact that he is black, but dealing with the fact with what that will mean for their daughter, her marriage, and her children in that day and age.