Jan 30, 2015
Amid an era in which racial tensions are boiling over more than they have in decades, America is looking for positive solutions to calm the storms. The movie “Selma” has come into sharp cultural focus as a result, due to its stirring depiction of Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Yet while that film does manage to bring those past dramatic incidents to vibrant life, there is still a need for filmmakers to address what’s happening in the here and now. The new movie “Black Or White” boldly steps into the breach with the tale of a white grandfather (Kevin Costner) and a black grandmother (Octavia Spencer) fighting for custody of their biracial granddaughter – and the result is a movie, that while occasionally uneven in tone, manages to be touching, smart and wickedly funny throughout.
Costner plays Elliott Anderson, a lawyer who in the film’s opening scene, has learned that his wife has died in a car crash. They had been raising their granddaughter Eloise (Jillian Estell) ever since her mother – Elliott’s daughter – died in childbirth, because the daughter was just 17 years old and Eloise’s father was a drug-using, 23-year-old street thug named Reggie (Andre Holland), who quickly fled his responsibilities.
But seven years later, with Elliott left to raise Eloise alone after the crash and Reggie re-entering the picture claiming to be newly sober, his mother Rowena (Spencer) enlists her shark-lawyer brother Jeremiah (Anthony Mackie) to seek sole custody of Eloise. While they use the two mens’ changed lifestyles as their official excuse, a deeper argument emerges: Rowena and her family believe that Eloise would be better served by being raised in a black environment.
Elliott fights back through his best friend and law partner Rick (Bill Burr), with the case that he has given Eloise a life of privilege and private schools that can’t be matched in Rowena’s South Central Los Angeles neighborhood. On the other hand, while Elliott resents Reggie and doesn’t trust his sobriety, he himself has a drinking problem that’s spinning out of control.
These complex issues come to a head in a series of courtroom scenes with dialogue that is powerfully written and unpredictable. Ever since his immortal performance as Crash Davis in 1988’s “Bull Durham,” Costner has been known for delivering fiery speeches that combine acid wit with deeper meaning, and he pulls off a rant here that had the heavily mixed black and white crowd at the advance screening gasping, laughing and applauding.
Most of the rest of the cast matches Costner note for note, with Spencer able to draw laughs with the best eye-rolls in show business. Mackie practically vibrates with fierce and prideful energy, Holland is outstanding at making his reprobate character sympathetic against the odds, and Burr – who is currently America’s hottest white standup comic – does a surprisingly good job with his meaty dramatic role.
Yet, the film isn’t without problems. Although she’s at the center of the often-electric battles, Estell is a flat presence onscreen and her character is frankly annoying at times. The musical score is downright atrocious as well, repeating itself throughout the film and adding a distracting emphasis to several slowly paced weak scenes outside the courtroom.
Writer-director Mike Binder, who has built a career of underappreciated yet terrific character-driven movies including “The Upside of Anger” and “Reign O’er Me,” still manages to make this movie land both its emotional and comedic punches. It’s a rare movie that speaks with often politically incorrect daring and honesty about how black and white people truly see each other, and it will likely stick in audience’s minds and grow on them even days after seeing it.
For that alone, it’s a movie that deserves to be noticed.
On a content level, “Black Or White” has its PG-13 rating earned primarily through one use of the “F” word, a surprising string of uses of the notorious “N” word in a couple of scenes, and some milder profanities scattered a few times throughout.
There’s also no sex or nudity, but the affair that resulted in Eloise’s creation is discussed in angry terms a couple of times. The movie is clear in its depiction of Elliott’s drinking and there is a brief image of Reggie’s crack use. There is also a pretty intense fistfight between two men that results in a rather perilous situation, but to say more would be giving things away.
Overall, “Black Or White” is perfectly acceptable viewing for adults and teens, though this is a movie that’s definitely aimed at a middle-age and older crowd.