Mike Binder‘s Black or White is getting a little Oscar run starting today, but it won’t be hitting a larger number of theaters until January 23 next year, and then expanding wide a week later on January 30. Relativity is hoping for some kind of Oscar love for the pic, but considering the chasm of mixed opinions on the film I’m not expecting it to gain much attention if any. I have a screener here, but given the negative review from friend of the site, Kevin Jagernauth, over at The Playlist I hesitate to even hit play. Then again, I also trust Jeff Wells at Hollywood-Elsewhere when it comes to his opinions on movies and he loved it…
What’s that? Maybe I should just watch it for myself you’re rushing off to the comments to hammer away on your keyboard? Okay, I probably will, after all, I really liked Binder’s under-appreciated Reign Over Me.
The story finds Kevin Costner playing attorney Elliot Anderson who is widowed after the car crash death of his wife. Elliot has raised his bi-racial granddaughter Eloise since his daughter died in childbirth. As he struggles with his grief, Elliot’s world is turned upside-down when the child’s African American grandmother Rowena (Octavia Spencer) demands that Eloise be brought under the care of her father Reggie, a drug addict who Elliot blames for the negligence that led to the death of his own daughter. Elliot finds himself deeply entrenched in a custody battle and will stop at nothing to keep his granddaughter from coming under the watch of his reckless son-in-law. “Black and White” is a searing portrayal of a broken man caught up in a struggle clouded by bitterness, blame and racial tension who learns to forgive and how to provide for the only family he has left.
Watch the trailer below and let me know what you think.
