In 1971, North Carolina schools were still segregated. Civil Rights activist Ann Atwater (Taraji P Henson) was fighting to change that. Local Klan leader, C.P. Ellis (Sam Rockwell) wants to maintain the status quo. A fire at an all-black school causes Atwater to call for integration. The dispute is taken into a judge, and Judge Leslie Hallford (Tim Ware) doesn’t settle the dispute himself, he asks state representative Bill Riddick (Babou Ceesay) to set up a charrette, a meeting for the opposite sides to get together and talk through their differences and hopefully desegregate the Durham school district. At first things don’t look too promising, Ellis tries to persuade the white members of the charrette that desegregation will ruin the school district. Ann Atwater tries to persuade Ellis by helping his mentally challenged son get a better room in the institution where he stays. Ellis attitude towards Atwater starts to soften, but no one knows how he will vote. How does C.P Ellis vote?
The Best of Enemies gets credit for being informative. I did not know that North Carolina schools were segregated until 1971, and I did not know what a charrette was, so I did actually learn a couple of things while watching this movie. But the audience should know the answer to if the schools have been desegregated, and that’s the problem with this film, the ending is known before a viewer watches on frame of this movie, and so how the filmmakers get to the climax is what’s important, and building to this climax was a dull , emotionless paint by numbers journey. A movie like this is supposed to uplift people like Hidden Figures did, but it didn’t. The premise is a great one, but the execution is poor. Watching this movie also made me wonder if people from opposite sides of an issue will ever work together again for the common good. These days it’s too easy to have one’s own viewpoint affirmed, with the internet and social media and cable news, anyone can find something or someone to agree with, why talk to someone with different beliefs?
The acting was not what it should have been for a movie that told such an important story. Taraji P. Henson yells through much of her performance, and so it’s a one note performance. There was too little subtlety in the way she approached this role. Sam Rockwell’s performance is too understated, other than the prolific use of the N-word, Rockwell goes through the motions. His laconic performance doesn’t help the story to move along.
Robin Bissell wrote and directed this movie, and the languid pacing of this film and the film’s length are just unbearable. Why did this story take 2 hours and 15 minutes to tell? It shouldn’t and that is the fault of Bissell, he let scenes go on too long and the movie itself is too long, tell a concise interesting story and people will watch. Bissell is mostly a producer, this is the first time he’s directed a movie and it may be the last time.
The Best Of Enemies: With Movies like This, Who Needs Enemas?
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