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The family drama “Black or White,” which is about a custody battle over a child of mixed race, is the kind of movie that makes you want to root for the protagonists because it is manifestly coming from a place that is sincere and honest. But it is frequently painful, and not in a positive way; it is painful because of the roads it doesn’t explore, the shortcuts it takes, and the special pleading it can’t stop itself from indulging in. All of these things contribute to the pain.
It was written by Mike Binder, who also served as the film’s director, and Kevin Costner, who starred in it, provided the financial backing. The film’s mission is to enlighten and heal through straightforward conversation, and there is no denying the uniqueness of the project from a purely business perspective. There are no exploitable elements, such as superheroes, robots, dinosaurs, or guns. There is also nothing else that producers would consider exploitable. There is no clear niche in the market in which it can be planted and grown with minimal effort. During the 1950s and 1960s, this type of photograph was referred to as a “problem picture.” In this instance, the issue at hand is racial mistrust and the ways in which it is maintained in a nation that likes to think of itself as post-racial and that is filled with people who think they are not racist in any way, shape, or form, not at all, no sir, and no ma’am.
Unfortunately, “Black or White” is part of another type of problem: the tendency to center what should be the drama of an extended family on the distress of a White man — in this case, the character played by Kevin Costner, Elliott Anderson, who is a recently widowed and obviously wealthy grandfather. Elliott wishes that people would recognize how hard he is trying and how good his heart is, and then leave him alone to raise his young granddaughter Eloise in his large house with its large swimming pool and his Mexican maid (Jillian Estell). The poor girl’s White mother passed away during childbirth, and her African-American father, Reggie (Andre Holland of the excellent Cinemax series “The Knick”), a drug addict who got Eloise’s mother pregnant and hasn’t been seen or heard from since, was only a distant figure in her life. She barely knew him.
The movie gets off to a strong start in a hospital waiting room, plunging you right into the worst moment of Elliott’s life: finding out that his wife (played by Jennifer Ehle) passed away as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident. Both the film’s authenticity and its capacity for empathy are immediately apparent to the viewer. At least for the time being, deck-stacking is not one of the movie’s many flaws, which we will discuss in a moment; however, the film does have a lot of issues. Elliott is no plaster saint. He is a member of the baby boomer generation and most likely believed that he was race-blind until his daughter began having sexual relations with Reggie and eventually bore his child. However, it is clear from his actions that he does so with the best intentions. He quickly takes over the child-rearing responsibilities that were previously performed by his wife, such as combing Eloise’s hair and tying it with a bow (his form, to put it mildly, is lacking). He even hires a tutor, Duvan Araga (Mpho Koaho of TNT’s “Falling Skies”), to assist the girl with her math homework, which he is unable to comprehend.
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After that, Eloise’s grandmother Rowena Jeffers, played by Octavia Spencer, enters the picture and begins to lobby for custody of her granddaughter. She is a pillar of the community and owns two other homes, as well as six businesses, in addition to the home she currently resides in, which is a modest but comfortable home in South Central Los Angeles. Like Elliott’s, his motivations in the custody fight are complicated and conflicted. In some ways, his actions are self-serving, while in others, they are quite reasonable. She hopes that Eloise will spend some time with her African-American relatives so that she can learn more about the other side of her heritage. She does not want the girl to grow up in a large, uninteresting house with her grandfather and his maid but rather in the company of loved ones who will be there for her when she is going through a difficult time, such as when she loses a loved one. And she wants to keep Eloise safe by giving her a haven from Elliott’s drinking, which has grown so severe in the aftermath of his wife’s death that he pays Duvan to drive Eloise to school while he sits in the passenger seat, muttering and reeking of booze. And she wants to keep Eloise safe by giving her a haven from Elliott’s drinking. And she wants to keep Eloise safe by giving her a haven from Elliott
Binder, who oversaw one of Costner’s best performances in “The Upside of Anger,” based this story on what occurred to his nephew, a biracial child whose mother passed away at the age of 33 and whose father was absent from his life. There are some scenes in which characters who appear to be voices of reason say and do things that are trivial, self-destructive, or just plain stupid. There are also scenes in which characters who are irritating or fundamentally untrustworthy blurt out something that is undeniably true. The performances range from being satisfactory to being outstanding. First among equals is Costner, who has no qualms about allowing Elliott to be cruel, maudlin, and pitiful at various points throughout the film. Rowena’s own adult children, including her son Jeremiah (Anthony Mackie), who is a lawyer, are alarmed by Rowena’s impulsive, self-defeating busybody quality. Jeremiah advises Rowena that the only way to win custody of Elliott is to paint him as a racist, a charge that is probably true in certain ways but that will need to be puffed up to monstrous dimensions in court. Spencer successfully conveys
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However, a significant portion of the time, the actors appear to have difficulty with the dialogue and the circumstances, which transforms their characters into caricatured foes and stick figure obstructions. One of the people who got hurt was Mackie’s lawyer, who served primarily to exacerbate the conflict and encourage Rowena to approve of strategies that were ultimately counterproductive and extreme. One more is Holland, who should be awarded a prize for the way in which she manages to make an increasingly repulsive and incomprehensible character watchable. To its credit, “Black or White” never lets up on its insistence that the audience feel compassion for Reggie’s struggle to remain clean and comprehend that he has been put in an impossible position. Rowena’s side of the family has a better chance at gaining custody of the child if he can demonstrate that he is capable of being a father, but all you have to do is look into his haunted, guilty eyes to realize that he is not.
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Reggie, unfortunately, ends up validating White stereotypes of absentee Black fathers who would rather smoke crack than raise their kids; he’s a hapless version of the sort of bogeyman that might have made its way into a State of the Union address about the failures of liberalism in the 1980s. Reggie is a hapless version of the sort of bogeyman that might have made its way into a 1980s State of the Union address about the failures of Even in its more admirable moments, such as a clever bit of crosscutting that reminds us that Reggie’s drug habit and Elliott’s drinking are both about numbing unbearable pain, the movie never manages to subvert the stereotype.
In the end, “Black or White” is unable to truly illuminate or heal because it is too disorganized and pokey, and because it is too comfortable with sitcom-like clowning. Too many of the scenes have the broadness of a sitcom, and even the supporting players who are delightfully original (such as Duvan, who is fluent in a number of languages and has written thesis papers on every conceivable subject) overstay their welcome. Worse still is the way that “Black or White” keeps the focus on Elliott rather than distributing its screen time more democratically, a strategy that might have countered complaints that the film is primarily concerned with proving that Elliott is not a racist, and that by extension, White viewers who identify with Elliott are not racists, either. What makes this aspect of the film particularly problematic is that it keeps the focus on Elliott rather than distributing its screen time more democratically.
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It is impossible to applaud the film for having the courage to go there when Elliott gets the chance to explain himself and launches into what sounds like the sort of half-apology, half-excuse that a White movie star might make after being caught using bigoted language in public. The movie uses the n-word in a couple of pivotal scenes, and not casually either. His claim that the majority of people occasionally entertain racist thoughts rings true, but what really matters is not our initial thought but our second and third thoughts about a topic. However, putting it in the mouth of a wealthy white man is still a strategic error, although it is not nearly as bad an idea as establishing Reggie’s feeble claim on custody by revealing that he is unable to spell his daughter’s name correctly. And the melodramatic climax, which momentarily endorses Elliott’s ugliest fears, is such a tawdry betrayal of the movie’s nobler impulses that “Black or White” never recovers from it. It is a tawdry betrayal of the movie’s nobler impulses that “Black or White” never recovers from it.
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This is the kind of movie that fails to impress, and instead of making you angry, it leaves you feeling frustrated and sad. Although it has the best intentions, it cannot get its thoughts straight.
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