Review: Black or White

Lawyer Kevin Costner loses his wife (Jennifer Ehle, in flashbacks) in a tragic car accident, after having already lost their daughter seven years ago, while the latter was giving birth to Costner’s only grandchild. Now that his wife is gone too, that makes Costner sole guardian of his biracial granddaughter Eloise (Jillian Estell). A barely functioning alcoholic, Costner means well but it becomes clear fairly quickly that he’s doing it tough raising Eloise on his own. Then Eloise’s mouthy paternal grandmother (Octavia Spencer) decides to fight Costner for custody of the child. She had a pretty good arrangement with Costner’s wife, but she’s much less pleased with Costner and thinks the girl would be better off in her household. Spencer’s brother Anthony Mackie just so happens to be a top lawyer, and agrees to represent her. It gets ugly, particularly when Mackie’s strategy involves using the race card. Then young Eloise’s crack-addicted, ne’er-do-well father (André Holland) slinks his way back into the picture. This is a guy who impregnated Costner’s daughter when she was just 17. Bill Burr plays Costner’s law partner, with Gillian Jacobs as Burr’s well-meaning, ditzy squeeze who Costner has zero tolerance for. Paula Newsome plays the judge whom wilful and talkative Spencer immediately gets offside.

 

From the films of his I’ve seen, writer-director Mike Binder is a frustrating filmmaker. The first film of his I saw, “The Sex Monster” was a hideously unfunny, misogynistic flick best forgotten. His subsequent “The Upside of Anger” and “Reign Over Me” were much better and more ambitious films, that ultimately just came up a little bit short. Well, finally he’s done it. This 2015 racial drama, although imperfect, is well and truly his best film to date that I’ve seen. Thankfully he also resists the urge to make a glory-hogging appearance in the film, so that’s one thing to be thankful for. Some people probably won’t take easily to a film on this subject from the POV of a very, very white man (and full disclosure, I’m even whiter than Binder. Whiter than Casper, too), but by and large this is actually pretty good and I urge people both white and black to give it a chance.

 

When Kevin Costner (who also produced) is on target, he’s a bloody good actor or at least a really dependable star in the Gary Cooper/Jimmy Stewart mould. He’s perfect here, perhaps a little too perfect given he’s played barely functioning alcoholics in charge of parenting before (most notably the rather weak “Swing Vote”). Still, perfect is perfect, and the film is lucky to have him. He gets a particularly good showcase moment towards the end, even if it’s somewhat implausible his character would be allowed to talk for so long uninterrupted in that situation. The other thing the film is lucky to have is a surprising sense of humour. Without it, the film would be a slightly better version of “Losing Isaiah”. With it, it allows Binder to discuss some seriously uncomfortable issues in a disarming and amusing manner so as to not scare off people who don’t much like…learning stuff. Sure, Octavia Spencer and her family are painted in ever-so slightly caricatured fashion early on, but neither she nor Costner (who admits to using some racist terms) is seen as a bad person. They are both very flawed human beings in a very tough, unpleasant situation that they are both too stubborn to communicate/cooperate their way out of. Yes, Anthony Mackie’s character is slightly jerky, and the character of the father (played by André Holland) is presented as the stereotype of the deadbeat African-American parent (and a drug addict to boot). However, if John Singleton can explore these sorts of issues in “Baby Boy”, I don’t really have a problem with Binder exploring similar material here. Don’t just write off what Binder is saying here just because of the colour of his skin, especially when he clearly has his heart in the right place. It’s a tightrope Binder walks, but I think he just narrowly gets away with it. The situation at the heart of the film here is a very unfortunate one, and when you hear what happened before the events of the film, that’s just even more tragic.

 

I particularly like one brilliant scene with Mackie where he explains just why the girl’s biological father taking an active part in the court case is a terrible idea. The fact that it’s an African-American actor/character saying these things, might just help smooth things over a tad, I think, because these are certainly some uncomfortable issues being discussed. However, like I said, humour is a key strength here. Oscar-winner Spencer in particular, is immediately hilarious as a woman who just can’t help running her mouth and saying the wrong thing. Her moments with the brilliant Paula Newsome are the comedic highlight of the film. A seriously ditzy Gillian Jacobs is also hysterically funny in a few scenes. I won’t deny that the conclusion is corny as hell (not to mention Binder’s attempts at providing Costner with black associates/friends, a pretty cheap tactic), but the actors involved nearly manage to pull it off.

 

Writer-director Mike Binder makes a pretty good fist of some fairly heavy issues of parenthood, responsibility, and racial relations in this drama with a nicely disarming sense of humour. Terrific performances help, too (Young Jillian Estell is cute without being annoying). It’s not great, and let’s face it, the racial divide in the US is so incredibly complicated- Have you turned on the news lately? Yeah… However, this could’ve gone so horribly wrong, and I for one am glad it avoided the pitfalls. That’s my big ‘ol white person take, though. I’d love to know what African-Americans make of the film, but this white guy liked it quite a bit. This one deserved a bit more attention, I think, it certainly leaves the pretentious and grossly stereotyped “Crash” for dead (Hell, it’s better than “Selma”, the disappointingly dour and miscast MLK biopic).

 

Rating: B-