Girl Trip

''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. Along with Lee, the film was produced by Will Packer under his Will Packer Productions banner. It follows a group of four friends who go to New Orleans to attend the Essence Music Festival in order to reconnect after a long time.

The cast was announced in June 2016, with principal photography taking place that month in New Orleans, Louisiana. The film also filmed during the 2016 Essence Music Festival, casting over 5000 background actors.

''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 overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, with many praising the cast performances and the film's originality. It was chosen by ''Time'' magazine as one of its top ten films of 2017. It was also a massive commercial success, grossing $140 million worldwide on its $19 million production budget including over $100 million domestically, the first comedy of 2017 to do so. It was also the first time a film written by an African-American female screenwriter had crossed the $100 million mark at the box office.

The film received multiple awards and nominations from various award and critic organizations, including Outstanding Motion Picture and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for Haddish at the 49th NAACP Image Awards. It received seven nominations at the 18th Black Reel Awards, with Haddish winning two awards for her performance.

Plot

In an attempt to reconnect with her friends from college, lifestyle guru Ryan Pierce, dubbed "the next Oprah," decides to invite her friends on a girls' trip to Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, where she will be the keynote speaker. Known as the "Flossy Posse," the group includes Sasha, a former journalist from ''Time'' magazine who now owns a floundering gossip site and is struggling financially; Lisa, a nurse and uptight single mother who has not had a boyfriend since her divorce years earlier; and Dina, a happy-go-lucky, impulsive party animal who was fired from her job after harming a co-worker who accidentally ate her lunch.

Shortly after arriving, Sasha receives a photo of Ryan's husband Stewart kissing another woman. The friends are reluctant to tell Ryan initially, but Ryan admits she is already aware of the situation and informs her friends that the two are in couple's therapy to address Stewart's infidelity. After Dina confronts Stewart at their hotel with a broken bottle, the Flossy Posse are ejected and settles into a one-star motel instead. At the Essence Fest later that night, they run into an old friend Julian, a musician performing at the festival who Ryan flirts with. He later gives up his hotel suite so that the women have somewhere decent to stay.

The next day, Ryan and Stewart host a cooking demonstration together at the music festival that goes awry when Stewart's mistress, Simone, shows up. A potential investor is impressed, however, and a business meeting is set up for Ryan and Stewart with their agent, Elizabeth, who then introduces Ryan and Stewart to Bethany Marshall. Dina serves the women absinthe right before the meeting, causing 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 and decide to go to a club to dance the absinthe off. They run into Simone and her friends and engage in a dance off before getting in a bar fight. Julian 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 at one of Julian's shows. Simone shows up and tells Sasha that she is pregnant. 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. Simone goes public with the affair, and Ryan accuses Sasha 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. As Ryan begins to give her keynote speech on the last day of the music festival and denies that the picture of Stewart and Simone is real, she sees her friends walk into the room. Ryan breaks from her scripted remarks, admitting the picture and affair are real. The speech is a 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 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 Miller 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
* Kate Walsh as Elizabeth Davelli, a business agent
* Kofi Siriboe as Malik, a young stud
* Deborah Ayorinde as Simone, Stewart's girlfriend
* Lara Grice as Bethany, an advertiser
* Tonea Stewart as Aunt Marian
* Mike Epps as an absinthe seller
* Shrey Vyapari as Vikram, Dina's Co-Worker
* Aadyn Encalarde as Riley, Lisa's Daughter

Amongst the cast, multiple celebrities and musicians make cameos, most notably Diddy, Ne-Yo, Mariah Carey, and New Edition (who perform "If It Isn't Love").

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, 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.

The film was awarded The ReFrame Stamp for gender parity in its production.

Soundtrack

Credits adapted from Tidal.

Track listing

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 $140.9 million, against a net production budget of $20–28 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

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