I’ve written before that the current age of critics seems very tough on both issue-driven domestic indies and also middle-brow dramas, well, “Black or White” is both so, naturally, they royally screwed up reviewing this film. This is a movie that doesn’t romanticize or demonize any of its main characters, and pulls off the tricky balancing act of presenting people exactly as they are without that knee-jerk compulsion to force them to be “likable” or more noble. To me, all of the adults in this movie have moments of selfishness and kindness, and the genuine emotion that bubbles beneath nearly every scene in this thing would make it the most moving family drama (a genre that’s all but extinct in today’s CGI-driven moviescape) in ages. It’s a work of open-eyed humanism so, naturally, it’s been negatively reviewed at MetaCritic and Rotten Tomatoes.
What Works: It’s about a white grandfather (Kevin Costner, continuing his minor career resurgence with this nuanced performance) who is sued for custody of his bi-racial granddaughter Eloise after the sudden death of his wife; Octavia Spencer plays the girl’s paternal grandmother and The Knick’s solid Andre Holland is Eloise’s drug addicted father who’s been coddled by Spencer’s character.
99 times out of 100, there’s two ways a movie like this would go: romanticizing the Costner character or romanticizing the father/grandmother. “Black or White” chooses a third direction by showing Costner as a man who is slowly being undone by the two A’s (Anger and Alcoholism) but also making clear that Eloise is probably better off staying in the same custody she’s been in her entire, relatively stabile life. This lack of pandering seems to really confuse other critics who are dumbfounded that there might be black families out there worse off than The Cosbys. They seem caught up in the stereotype of a drug-addicted, absentee black father (the movie even smartly mentions this stereotype), selectively ignoring that this is based on a true story and Holland’s acting does a lot to transcend the mere stereotype. I didn’t walk out of this movie thinking any of the characters were bad people or stock villains. How could you with actors as terrific as Costner and Holland/Spencer—both of whom are Alabama natives—putting human faces on tricky racial issues?
The measure of a good movie is not merely its ability to avoid stereotypes, but how skillfully it can transcend them. Like the scene where Costner is berating Holland for his drug abuse, even as he himself is drunk or the deep-dish empathy Holland and Costner can generate behind their tired eyes. If Costner’s final finger-to-heart thump to Eloise doesn’t touch you, then maybe you’ve fallen asleep somewhere before that.
At this point, I feel that movies like this that get shot down by critics for not dealing with race relations in the “perfect” way are just being dismissed because they don’t want to watch movies that deal with them in any way.
What Doesn’t: I think Spencer may go a little too broad in some of her scenes, and you could argue that the movie is 15 minutes too long, but why sit here and pick this underdog film apart? There are a lot worse options for your moviegoing dollar out there that are receiving better reviews and more attention.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Somebody get Costner his own version of a Keaton-Comeback already. The look on his face at the beginning and ending of this film says it all: “I’ve learned from my mistakes, and I’m ready to humble myself.” He’s no longer the “Postman,” and I think he just might be the next “Birdman.”