Girls Trip

Girls Trip Information

Girls Trip is a 2017 American comedy film starring Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Tiffany Haddish, and Jada Pinkett Smith. The film is directed by Malcolm D. Lee and written by Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver, from a story by the pair and Erica Rivinoja, who based the script off their own experiences with their female friends. It follows a group of four friends who go to New Orleans to attend the Essence Music Festival in order to reconnect.

Girls Trip premiered at the American Black Film Festival in Miami on June 14, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States by Universal Pictures on July 21, 2017. It received positive reviews from critics, with many praising Haddish's performance, and was chosen by Time magazine as one of its top ten films of 2017. It grossed $140 million worldwide, including over $100 million domestically, the first comedy of 2017 to do so. It was also the first time a film by an African-American female screenwriter crossed the $100 million mark.

Plot

Four best friends, the "Flossy Posse", have grown distant over the years. When lifestyle guru Ryan Pierce (Regina Hall), who is dubbed "the next Oprah", is offered an opportunity to be the keynote speaker at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, she decides to bring along her friends to turn her work vacation into a girls' trip.

Joining Ryan is Sasha (Queen Latifah), an ex-journalist from Time magazine who now owns a floundering gossip site and is struggling financially; Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith), a nurse and uptight mom who has not had a boyfriend since her divorce years earlier; and Dina (Tiffany Haddish), a happy-go-lucky, impulsive party animal who was fired after assaulting a coworker shortly before the trip.

While on the trip, Sasha is sent a tip that shows a picture of a black man's head kissing an Instagram model, presumed to be Ryan's husband Stewart. The friends are reluctant to tell Ryan, but when Dina spills the news, Ryan shocks them by telling them she is already aware of the situation and that they are in couple's counseling. Nevertheless, when Dina sees Stewart at their hotel, she threatens him with a broken bottle, resulting in her getting ejected and banned from the hotel. In solidarity all the girls leave with her, but the only hotel they are able to get is a sleazy one-star motel frequented by customers of prostitutes.

The ladies go to Essence Fest where they run into Julian, another old friend, and Malik, a young man whom spotted Lisa earlier in the crowd. After the concert Ryan flirts with Julian, who nicely rejects her, since she is still married. He gives up his suite so that the women have somewhere decent to stay. Meanwhile, Lisa takes Malik with her intending to have sex with him, but stops as she is intimidated by the size of his penis.

Ryan hosts a cooking demonstration with Stewart that goes awry when his mistress Simone shows up. Nevertheless, a potential investor is impressed and a business meeting is set up for Ryan and Stewart with their agent, Elizabeth. However, Dina serves the women absinthe right before the meeting, which causes them to hallucinate. At her meeting Ryan thinks the waitress is Stewart's mistress, Lisa thinks her kids are at the club with her, Dina thinks she is flying and Sasha thinks she is making out with an attractive man who is actually a lamp. The girls eventually pull Ryan out of the meeting, though they leave behind her agent who is also hallucinating, having drunk the absinthe with them.

The girls decide to go to a club to dance off the absinthe where they run into Simone and her friends and have a dance off before getting in a bar fight. They are rescued by Julian, who picks them up before they can get arrested and takes them back to their hotel.

Ryan and Stewart are offered a massive deal from the chain store Best Mart, whose representative wants to hire them as spokespeople. Ryan goes out to celebrate with the girls, going to one of Julian's shows. While there Simone shows up and tells Sasha that she is pregnant and that Stewart has stopped returning her calls. She offers to give Sasha's blog exclusive content to her affair with pictures as well. Stewart once again goes to Ryan to convince her to stay with him to finalize their deal. Nevertheless, Simone goes public, and when she does, Ryan lashes out at Sasha accusing her of being the one who leaked the pictures. The fight spills out into the relationship of all the women and they all part on bad terms.

Dina and Lisa make up quickly. After Sasha decides to take down her blog, disgusted with the celebrity gossip racket, Dina and Lisa reunite with her and the three of them get together to go rescue Ryan who has decided to stay with Stewart through the scandal.

Ryan begins to give her keynote speech and denies that the picture of Stewart and Simone is real. When her friends walk into the room and Ryan sees them, she turns her speech around, revealing that Stewart has cheated on her and that she can no longer lie to herself and her public. The speech is a massive success and when the women reunite after the show, Ryan apologizes to Sasha. Ryan's agent arrives and tells Ryan that the deal with Best Mart is still on but with her alone. Ryan decides to take Sasha with her as her business partner the way they planned to be years ago. A series of events shows the girls happily reunited and Ryan beginning a relationship with Julian.

Cast

Regina Hall as Ryan Pierce, a bestselling author
Queen Latifah as Sasha Franklin, an Internet gossip reporter
Jada Pinkett Smith as Lisa Cooper, a nurse and mom
Tiffany Haddish as Dina, their loud happy-go-lucky friend
Larenz Tate as Julian Stevens, a musician
Mike Colter as Stewart Pierce, Ryan's cheating husband
Kofi Siriboe as Malik, a young stud
Kate Walsh as Elizabeth Davelli, a business agent
Deborah Ayorinde as Simone, Stewart's girlfriend
Lara Grice as Bethany, an advertiser
Tonea Stewart as Aunt Marian
Mike Epps as an absinthe seller

Various musicians, actors, and authors make cameos as themselves, including Mariah Carey, Ne-Yo, Faith Evans, Morris Chestnut, Gabrielle Dennis, MC Lyte, New Edition, Common, Estelle, Sean Combs, Carla Hall, Sunny Hostin, William Levy, Babyface, Doug E. Fresh, Mannie Fresh, Lalah Hathaway, Maxwell, Mase, Ava DuVernay, Lorraine Toussaint, Jaina Lee Ortiz, Terry McMillan, and Iyanla Vanzant.

Production

In February 2014, Universal announced that director Malcolm D. Lee and producer Will Packer would collaborate on a film tentatively titled Girls Trip, with South Park writer Erica Rivinoja attached to script. In May 2016, Universal set a release date of August 11, 2017 for the film. It was also reported that Regina Hall would star, and Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver were rewriting the script. Oliver told The Hollywood Reporter that she wanted to break down the barriers of respectability politics and portray "Black women being carefree and having fun just like everybody else. I think we need to show all aspects of black lives. I love Moonlight, I love Hidden Figures, but I also want to see some people who are having fun and just showing female friends hanging out." Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith joined the cast in early June 2016, and Larenz Tate joined later that month. The film's release date was changed to July 21, 2017, as principal photography began in late June 2016 in New Orleans, Louisiana, and included filming at the 2016 Essence Music Festival.

A teaser trailer for the film was released on January 31, 2017. A red band trailer for the film was released on February 9, 2017.

Reception

Box office

Girls Trip grossed $115.2 million in the United States and Canada and $24.9 million in other territories for a total gross of $140.1 million, against a net production budget of $19 million. Deadline Hollywood calculated the film made a net profit of $66.1 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.

Girls Trip opened alongside Dunkirk and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets on July 21, 2017, and was projected to gross around $20 million from 2,583 theaters, with industry experts saying it could debut as high as $30 million. It made $11.7 million on its first day, including $1.7 million from Thursday night previews at 2,195 theaters. The film grossed $31.2 million in its opening weekend, finishing second at the box office behind Dunkirk and marked the largest opening of director Malcolm D. Lee's career; 52% of its opening weekend audience was African-American, with an overall 60% being women over 25. In its second week the film dropped just 37% and grossed $19.6 million, finishing 3rd at the box office behind Dunkirk and newcomer The Emoji Movie, and in its third week the film made $11.4 million, finishing 4th. On August 17, the film crossed the $100 million mark domestically, becoming the first comedy of 2017 to do so.

Critical response

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 90% based on 138 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Girls Trip is the rare R-rated comedy that pushes boundaries to truly comedic effect"?and anchors its laughs in compelling characters brought to life by a brilliantly assembled cast." Review aggregator Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating to reviews, the film has a score of 71 out of 100, based on reviews from 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale, one of fewer than 80 films in the history of the service to receive such a score. According to comScore, filmgoers gave it an 82% overall positive score and a 67% "definite recommend".

In Variety magazine, film reviewer Peter Debruge wrote, "When it comes to Hollywood studio comedies, most of the time, we are lucky to get one unforgettable set piece, whereas Girls Trip screenwriters Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver deliver at least half a dozen. And rather than simply letting an effective joke stand, they double down, milking it for all it's worth. In this case, it works like a charm, especially with Haddish's character, a relative newcomer who nearly runs away with the movie"?the way Melissa McCarthy all but stole Bridesmaids. Girls Trip rivals even Bridesmaids in its ability to keep the comic situations coming." For CinemaBlend, Mike Reyes wrote, "While there's still plenty of time worn clichs in Girls Trip, there is a genuine sense of friendship, and comedy throughout, that make the film one of this summer's most surprising comedies. You can believe that these four women are the best of friends, which is something that's not always easy or focused on in a comedy of this type. Girls Trip has an energy that's undeniable, eventually winning audience members over with a theme of friendship that's well built in the context of the film."

Accolades

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipient(s) and nominee(s)
AARP's Movies for Grownups Awards	February 5, 2018	Best Ensemble	The cast of Girls Trip
AARP's Movies for Grownups Awards	February 5, 2018	Readers' Choice Poll	Girls Trip
African-American Film Critics Association	December 12, 2017	Top Ten Films	Girls Trip
		Best Comedy	Girls Trip
		Best Supporting Actress	Tiffany Haddish
Black Reel Awards	February 22, 2018	Outstanding Film	Girls Trip
		Outstanding Director	Malcolm D. Lee
		Outstanding Supporting Actress	Tiffany Haddish
		Outstanding Screenplay	Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver
		Outstanding Ensemble	Mary Vernieu and Michelle Wade Byrd
		Outstanding Score	David Newman
		Outstanding Breakthrough Performance, Female	Tiffany Haddish
Casting Society of America	January 18, 2018	Studio or Independent - Comedy	Mary Vernieu, Michelle Wade Byrd and Elizabeth Coulon
Critics' Choice Movie Awards	January 11, 2018	Best Comedy	Girls Trip
		Best Supporting Actress	Tiffany Haddish
		Best Actress in a Comedy	Tiffany Haddish
Detroit Film Critics Society	December 7, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Tiffany Haddish
Detroit Film Critics Society	December 7, 2017	Best Breakthrough	Tiffany Haddish
Dorian Awards	February 24, 2018	Supporting Film Performance of the Year "? Actress	Tiffany Haddish
Empire Awards	March 18, 2018	Best Comedy	Girls Trip
Empire Awards	March 18, 2018	Best Actress	Tiffany Haddish
Guild of Music Supervisors Awards	February 8, 2018	Best Music Supervision for Film: Budgeted Under 25 Million Dollars	Angela Leus
IndieWire Critics Poll	December 19, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Tiffany Haddish
NAACP Image Awards	January 15, 2018	Outstanding Motion Picture	Girls Trip
		Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture	Tiffany Haddish
		Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture	Regina Hall
		Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture	Malcolm D. Lee
		Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture	Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver
New York Film Critics Circle	January 3, 2018	Best Supporting Actress	Tiffany Haddish
Online Film Critics Society	December 28, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Tiffany Haddish
Online Film Critics Society	December 28, 2017	Best Breakout Star	Tiffany Haddish
Seattle Film Critics Society	December 18, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Tiffany Haddish
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association	December 8, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Tiffany Haddish
Women Film Critics Circle	December 17, 2017	Best Comedic Actress	Tiffany Haddish
		Josephine Baker Award	Girls Trip
		Women's Work: Best Ensemble	The cast of Girls Trip