The new season's follow-up to Green Book, The Best of Enemies manages to stay afloat largely due to the talents of its cast and its endearing story.
Endearing, if not quite heartwarming. It starts as a delicious mix of stinging comedy and drama as civil rights activist Ann Atwater and KKK leader C.P. Ellis clash time and again in their home of Durham, North Carolina, in the hot summer of 1971. Each leads their respective town factions in attempting to better their lives -- no, that's not quite right. Let's edit it to say that Atwater fights to better the lives of black folk in Durham while Ellis seems quite content to keep things as they are, with the occasional white terrorist attack against the already disadvantaged black folk as a reminder that they aren't welcome.
It's exactly this shift in perspective that reveals the central problem with this movie: Much like the "Best Picture" winner last year, Enemies washes over lots of its issues with a cutesy, sentimental facade that suggests to a casual consumerist audience humor and heart in issues of life and death over racial anxieties. This maudlin sensibility is mobilized as the movie largely moves us through the perspective of the Ellis character, whose character arcs from strong KKK leader to weak KKK leader. It's not terribly dynamic, and its centrality indicates the film's deep ambivalence to the horrors lurking just off-screen.
That said, the character arc is surprisingly realistic, something the film's most vocal critics completely miss. Sure, Taraji P. Henson's Atwater character is severely short-served by the script, but this movie isn't meant to lionize an angry black woman (for better or worse; I personally would favor that movie that allows her to amaze us with her power). It's meant for the bigoted white folk in the audience, however few of them there may be, and for all of us white folk who tend to be silent or distanced from such issues. It's meant to show us how even the slightest change in our mannerisms, behavior, and beliefs can have such a shattering impact on our community.
In this way and in this light, I feel justified in saying I liked the movie. It reads more like a Hallmark special than a feature film, but sometimes that's okay too. As the two factions of Durham engage in their "charrette" -- town hall meetings to discuss and solve a series of self-identified social conflicts -- the film rolls along in familiar, predictable patterns designed to put the audience at ease; a few nasty shocks keep us engaged, though. The performances are solid if bland, the style functional if tasteless, but you can feel the beat of its heart. Good intentions and workmanlike craft make The Best of Enemies worth a watch and discussion, if nothing more.
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