Story of Black
or White Movie
Elliot is in a
hospital, discussing funeral arrangements over the phone. His wife died in an
accident. His colleague/friend Rick arrives, Elliot tells him what happened,
and Rick tries to offer him support. Elliot goes home alone and drinks himself
to sleep. Next morning, he hides the liquor bottle as his granddaughter Eloise,
who is bi-racial, knocks on the door and asks where her grandmother is. He
tells her he will take her to school and to finish getting ready. He sees
visions of his wife and attempts to brush Eloise’s hair, but is unsuccessful.
She is upbeat as usual, and they are having difficulty as Elliot tries to do
her hair, get her ready, and then take her to school. Elliot admits that he has
never driven his granddaughter to school before, and that he got lost.
While Eloise
is at school, guests are over the house to try to arrange things for the
funeral. Rick and his girlfriend Fay go with Elliot to pick Eloise up from
school. Eloise is still unaware about her grandmother at this point. Elliot
sits her down and tells her that Grandma Carol was killed in a car accident.
She asks him if he’s been drinking. She doesn’t seem to have a reaction about
her grandmother at first, but then starts crying as Fay and Rick watch from the
car. Eloise’s other grandmother, Rowena (WeeWee), and her family attend the
funeral. Rowena immediately starts talking about her big family, implying that
Eloise should live with them. Elliot continues to try to be “Mr. Mom”, doing
everything as his wife would do it.
A man named
Duvan comes over for an interview to be a tutor for Eloise. Elliot reveals to
Duvan that his daughter died while giving birth to Eloise, and that he and
Carol were not on speaking terms with their daughter at the time, so Elliot and
his wife were not present duringthe birth of Eloise. Elliot also asks Duvan to
tutor him in math, so he can help Eloise, which Duvan agrees for
"additional student" cost. Rowena is threatening to sue for custody
via her brother, who is a big-time lawyer with at least 6 college degrees. Rick
tells Elliot that Rowena and Eloise are both black, which angers him, as Eloise
is “half black” and "half white". He then pays Duvan to drive him
around, since he is too drunk to do it himself. He takes Duvan to see Rowena.
She says she wants shared custody and accuses Elliot of not wanting Eloise with
her,because Eloise would be with the “black folks.” He tells her to stop
bringing up that subject, because Eloise lives in the safest neighborhood in
LA, and goes to one of the best schools in the country. He brings up what her
son Reggie (Eloise’s father) did to the family and the hell they put them
through.
Rowena’s
brother has his legal team sitting down with her for a meeting. He convinces
her to say that Elliot has a problem with black people, to win custody. He has
arranged a black female judge for the case, which would make the case
disadvantageous for Elliot. Elliot talks to Eloise to see if she is happy with
where she is. She makes it clear that she wants to stay living with Elliot and
her friends. They go to court for the initial hearing and the judge was
frustrated with Rowena’s attitude, which helped Elliot gain more chances of
keeping custody. Elliot continues to drink and see visions of his wife. Eloise
has been seeing a court-appointed psychiatrist for a while, and Elliot starts
to notice her change of attitude. One day, Eloise tests Elliot's anger by being
disobedient, causing him to yell and snatch her things from her. She storms off
saying she doesn’t want to live with him and she wants her daddy.
Reggie shows
up at Elliot's office unannounced. He asks Elliot for money, saying that if he
gives the money to him, he will stay out of the everyone's life which would
give Elliot a better chance of winning custody. Elliot implies to agree, then
gives him some cash, and invites him to the house for a dinner, because Eloise
needs to see her father as soon as possible. Eloise gets all dressed up, but
Reggie does not show up at the dinner due to nervousness and embarrasment.
Eloise asks to be excused from the table & goes to her room upset. Elliot
finally finds the liquor bottle, which his maid hid under the sink to prevent
him from drinking too much. The next day, Rowena and her entire family show up
to Elliot’s house to go swimming. She tells Elliot that Reggie is sitting
outside, which makes Elliot furious, and Rowena tries to tell Elliot to go easy
on him but Elliot disobeys and ignores Rowena. Reggie tells Elliot that he
wanted to come for the dinner, but just couldnt. Elliot talks him off, but
Reggie walks away quietly, leading him to say that Reggie is not a “street
nigger” like Reggie thinks he is. Reggie turns back, then walks away, but
eventually joins the pool later after realizing that Elliot was right. Eloise
meets her father for the first time in months, and they quietly hug. Elliot
asks everyone where Reggie was and Elliot finds him falling asleep in the
house. Elliot confronts him and offers him $25,000 to go away, get off the
drugs, and get his act together. Reggie tells him he has been off the drugs
already, and just needs some money to pay off debts.
Reggie meets
with his Uncle Jeremiah and Rowena. Jeremiah is not convinced that Reggie is
clean from drugs, and demands him to tell the truth, because the judge won’t
believe him either. Jeremiah thinks Reggie should stay out of the case in order
to win custody, but because Reggie is the father & Rowena wants to keep him
involved. Elliot gets a call from Rick that Reggie is now petitioning for full
custody and used the check from Elliot, saying that they will believe Elliot
was bribing Reggie to stay out of the picture, which looks very bad for his
case. Elliot meets with his lawyers and explains that he wasn’t bribing, his
deceased daughter’s life was ruined by Reggie, and he won’t let Reggie do the
same thing to Eloise. Elliot gets multiple texts & calls from his maid, and
comes home to find out that Reggie stopped by and took Eloise, telling the maid
they will be back by dinner. Elliot rushes to Rowena’s place and the whole
family is gathered for a musical session, with Eloise playing the piano. Elliot
sees Reggie across the street, smoking and drinking, and runs toward him.
Reggie tries to run away, but gets caught and tackled by Elliot, who warns him
to never come to his house without permission & take Eloise again.
Rowena comes
into view, and she finds out that Reggie didn’t get permission from Elliot to
take Eloise after telling her that he did. Nevertheless, Rowena keeps defending
Reggie, and Elliot tells her that the “bribery check” was to help Reggie pay
off his debts, yet she or any of her family never saw any amount of it. On the
way to court, Rowena sees Reggie smoking and nervous, confessing to her that he
can’t do it. Rowena slaps him, trying to knock some sense into him. They go to
court and Reggie elaborates the rehearsed lines. Rowena makes another outburst,
and the judge threatens to have her taken out in handcuffs. Rowena sees that
Reggie is fidgety and agitated, then forces Jeremiah to call for a lunch break.
Elliot's team reluctantly agrees, but Elliot calls for "last minute"
questions before taking a break, seizing the moment as a perfect opportunity to
sway the judge. Rick then prompts Reggie's education level, going through his
spelling, reading, and writing skills, then asks him to spell his daughter's
name, "Eloise". Reggie spells her name "L-o-e-z-e" due to
tje fact that he is illeterate and has a 10th grade high school education.
After lunch
break, they start to question Duvan. He says that he is fluent in 9 languages
and "conversational" in 4 others. He says that while tutoring Eloise,
he also tutors Elliot, who happens to be more involved in education than any
parent of his clients. Jeremiah reveals that Duvan is also a driver for Elliot
because he has a drinking problem, forcing Elliot to acknowledge that he got
himself intoxicated in front of Eloise more than once. Elliot is on the stand
and tells about his experiences with Reggie in the past like how he was big on
drugs, asking for money all the time, and one time he pulled a knife on Elliot.
Jeremiah challenges Elliot about his financial stability, and he agrees that he
will eventually have to get back to his job, and that he won’t be able to be
with Eloise full-time. Jeremiah then asks him about the time when he referred
Reggie as a “street nigger.” Elliot admits saying it and apologizes; however,
he explains that's how Reggie referred himself all the time to Elliot's
daughter. Elliot says he used the term without thinking, because it was stuck
in his brain. Elliot further denies being a racist, because everybody can make
stereotypical prejudices at first sight. He reasons that Reggie's own actions
throughout the years led himself to be remembered as "street nigger."
Later while
Elliot is drinking beside the swimming pool and Eloise is asleep, Reggie shows
up asking for more money, threatening to take Eloise. Elliot pushes him out of
his sight. Shortly after, Reggie comes back with a knife. They get into a
fight, and Elliot manages to kick the knife to the pool, but tumbles into the
pool as Reggie runs inside to Eloise’s room, where he sees the pictures that
Eloise drew for Reggie and Elliot, as well as an old picture of Elliot's daughter.
In the pool, Elliot is tangled up in the tarp, and he faces a near-death
experience, where he pictures his wife swimming to help him. In reality, Reggie
is the one who pulled him out of the pool & Reggie then attempts CPR on
Elliot as best as he can. Elliot starts breathing again, and Reggie finally
apologizes for his daughter's death and leaves.
A week later
they are at the final hearing in the case. Reggie admits that Elliot was right
and he isn’t ready to be a father. He voluntarily withdraws his fight for
custody, saying that he needs to go away for a while to get himself together
first. Elliot was ready to tell what happened on the night the other day, but
doesn’t feel the need to any more. Jeremiah stands up and says they are now
asking for Rowena to claim full custody. She stands up and says she doesn’t
want full custody and says Elliot has Eloise’s best interest at heart and they
want him to have full custody, in which the judge grants.
After some
time later, Elliot and Eloise arrive at Rowena's place. Elliot explains to
Eloise that he needs to go away for a couple of weeks to work on some changes
and disfunctions. Eloise understands, and Elliot leaves Duvan in charge of
tutoring her, as well as driving her to school. Rowena and her family are glad
to have Eloise stay in their place, telling Elliot she has no hard feelings for
him but only love, giving him a kiss on the cheek as he packs his bags and
drives away.
Cast by
Kevin Costner as Elliot Anderson
Octavia Spencer as Rowena Jeffers
Jillian Estell as Eloise Anderson
Bill Burr as Rick Reynolds
Mpho Koaho as Duvan Araga
Anthony Mackie as Jeremiah Jeffers
Andre Holland as Reggie Davis
Gillian Jacobs as Fay
Jennifer Ehle as Carol
Paula Newsome as Judge Cummins
Indigo as Young Nurse
Lindsey G. Smith as Andrea
Janeline Hayes as Dondi
Lloyd Dillon as Rex
Ireyon Johnson as Kristen
Ernest Wells as Victor
Nagelle LeBoyd as Rowena's niece
