“It’s not about black and white. It’s about right and wrong,” pleads wealthy lawyer Elliott Anderson (Kevin Costner) before a courtroom in defense of maintaining sole custody of his biracial granddaughter Eloise (Jillian Estell). Up until this moment, Black or White almost works. The entire film has been building to this moment, the linchpin of this supposed true story in which two sides of a little girl’s family, one white and one black, go to court over her future following the death of her white grandmother, Elliott’s wife. Each side has legitimate claims; Elliott has raised Eloise from birth, while matriarch Rowena (Octavia Spencer) contends that his ability to supervise her is impaired due to the loss of his wife and his drinking problem. Underneath it all is the sometimes referenced but never explicitly confronted undercurrent of racial tension that writer-director Mike Binder hoped to resolve when Elliott pleaded his case in a testimony for the ages.
It’s a promising premise with the potential to address many issues at once that is unfortunately channeled into a ready-for-Fox-News diatribe against the “bad” kind of black person who plays the “race card” that balks at the suggestion that a wealthy white guy telling black people how to earn his respect might be racist. Elliott even says that “that’s how he refers to himself” when justifying his use of the N-word at Eloise’s father. An alternate title for Black or White might as well have been I’m Not Racist But…
What’s worse is Black or White would have been salvageable had Binder attempted to see this story from Rowena’s point of view. Instead, he gives the character a few sound bites on respectability, leaving the rest of her personality to be filled in by the supremely watchable Octavia Spencer. Whatever depth Rowena has is due to her, and the same is true of every black character, from the lawyer (Anthony Mackie) who rails against stereotypes, yet is openly shown considering the charge of racism against Elliott as a tactical call (the dreaded “race card”), to an impossibly smart African immigrant (Mpho Koaho) whose sole purpose seems to be presenting the characters with a true uphill struggle worth complaining about, yet lives up to every African stereotype you can imagine.
Kevin Costner does his best with Elliott, imbuing him with the same qualities as some of his most memorable characters: a flawed yet morally sound man who knows the right thing to do with no idea how to make it happen. The attempts to draw similarities between his alcoholism and the crack addiction of Eloise’s father almost go somewhere interesting. Both of these men have massive substance abuse problems, yet only one is treated as a pariah by society. But as is the fate of every worthwhile idea in Black or White, it’s thrown to the side to make more room for reactionary melodrama.
The outcome of Black or White is not the only reason to skip it. It’s a courtroom saga that has no idea about proper courtroom procedure or what makes it tense, a meditation on race that’s happy to flesh out white characters but only leaves room for black archetypes (even the “good” ones are still one-dimensional), and a “true” story with no citation or any indication that it has any basis in reality.
Playing this week
American Sniper
Birdman
Black Sea
The Boy Next Door
The Imitation Game
Into the Woods
The Loft
Mortdecai
Paddington
Project Almanac
Selma
Strange Magic
The Wedding Ringer
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213
