Smart and truthful ‘Best of Enemies’
The first time we see Sam Rockwell in “The Best of Enemies,” he is presiding over an evening meeting of the Ku Klux Klan. And right away, Rockwell does something smart. Through his voice and posture, he lets us know that for this local Exalted Cyclops, it’s a routine evening. We might be thinking, “Wow. This is the KKK.” But Rockwell doesn’t use the time to show a racist who’s foaming at the mouth. Instead he shows us another Tuesday night.
And something about that makes us like this guy, a little. He doesn’t seem crazy. He doesn’t seem particularly limited. He just seems like he has some seriously wrong ideas.
That these ideas are not just wrong but dangerous is emphasized minutes later, when we see him and three other racists camped outside a woman’s house. Apparently, this white woman has a black boyfriend. So when she gets home, they get out their rifles, wait for her upstairs light to turn on, and proceed to shoot up the entire downstairs of her house.
“The Best of Enemies” is based on a true story that took place in 1971. If it weren’t a true story, not only would no one believe it, but a lot of people wouldn’t want to believe it, because it’s a movie about redemption, and we’re not big on redemption these days. We’re big on finding out if someone has ever done something wrong and then writing them off for life. As the story begins, C.P. Ellis (Rockwell) has done more than one wrong thing. He’s done 40 years worth them.
This is Durham, North Carolina, in the last time and place in history when it was possible to be a Klansman and be part of the mainstream local discourse. Early in the story, the miserable, impoverished school where the black kids go spontaneously bursts into flames, due to the building’s faulty wiring, and a town conference is convened to figure out what to do about it.
Ellis is asked to co-chair the conference, because he represents the furthest extreme of white opinion. His fellow co-chair is Ann Atwater, a black activist, played with fire and appealing theatricality by Taraji P. Henson. Ellis and Atwater have a history of mutual antagonism, but they know they can’t turn down the conference without losing a voice in the outcome.
“The Best of Enemies,” if only by virtue of its title, isn’t suspenseful in the usual way. We know, in general, where the movie has to go. The suspense is in how it gets there, considering how impossible the journey seems in the beginning. And the success of the movie depends that that journey makes sense, that it’s not pushed, that it’s not sentimentalized, that it doesn’t soften its depiction of what it means to be a Klansman.
Fortunately, being a true story, the movie has a template to follow. Also, fortunately, the truth is sometimes more interesting than anything we’d make up. “The Best of Enemies” doesn’t pretend that any rough place could be made smooth if only people would talk to each other. But it does put forth the hopeful suggestion that sometimes talking helps, and that demonizing the other side — even when the other side has demons — almost never changes anything, at least not for the better.
Along the way, “The Best of Enemies” is a pleasure to watch, not only thanks to Henson and Rockwell, but to the meticulous recreation of the era. The movie also benefits from the presence of Anne Heche as Ellis’s wife. Heche doesn’t say much, but she conveys a lot. Through Heche’s demeanor, we know that she doesn’t share her husband’s racism, and through her relaxation around him, we know that she’s not scared of him. She’s a sensible person, and if she’s with this guy, maybe just maybe he’s not all bad.