Review of The Best of Enemies, directed by Robin Bissell

One of the curious things I’ve noticed about running a book and movie blog is that when I sometimes look back at all the art and literature I’ve consumed throughout the years, especially with the timestamps of when a review is published, there are definitely trends in what kind of content I’m consuming.

For example, I can see when I watched a bunch of Asian sports dramas in a short amount of time, or how I was going through a time where I wanted to read more Latinx literature, so there are more of those kinds of reviews coming out in a certain period. It’s an interesting way to map the inner workings of my mind—that’s what I’m beginning to realize matters more when examining my own habits and efforts to diversify.

All of this is to say that I am probably going through a civil rights moment when it comes to these stories lately. It might have started when I read The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, which review will probably come out late on the blog due to the sheer amount of backlog I have to get through.

I watched The Best of Enemies during this time. Before watching it, I had never heard of the movie, but because I spend so much time on Netflix, I found it on the depths of my recommended movies. And so I sat down one lonely Wednesday morning and watched the film.

I’m starting to ramble, so let’s get into the review!

A Black woman and a KKK leader slowly become friends over similar struggles.

This movie takes place almost a decade after the events of the Civil Rights Movement, in 1971, but it shows how racism is still alive and healthy throughout the United States, especially when it comes to trying to justify segregation.

Set in Durham, North Carolina, our main character is Ann Atwater, who dedicates a chunk of her life to getting better conditions for poor Blacks in the region. She runs into problems with the all-white judging panels, as well as C.P., the local president of the Ku Klux Klan.

When Ann’s school catches on fire, C.P. becomes worried that the Black students will be brought into the white schools. A meeting is set up, and Ann and C.P. are brought to discuss what could happen and the potential of integrating. These two clash heavily, and they hate each other due to C.P.’s prejudices and outright racism. He won’t even sit with Ann or Bill.

It’s finally agreed that people should be selected at random to vote. The Black students are brought into the white schools, and at the end of one of the meetings, a Black reverend asks to play gospel music. C.P. gets offended and says if they are allowed to do that, he should be allowed to show is KKK items. Bill says yes to this, despite Ann wanting to reject it.

Some of the Black students try to destroy the KKK memorabilia, but Ann stops them. C.P. watches as she does that, and soon after Bill begins making Black and white people to sit next to each other at the cafeteria. He makes Ann and C.P. sit with each other alone, and then they begin chatting about their families.

C.P.’s son is disabled and in a special institute, and he has to go there after his son is moved into a room with a more rowdy boy. C.P. wants his son moved, but because he cannot procure the money to do it, he cannot. Ann then visits, as C.P. had told her about his son, and gets him his own room because she knows one of the staff members.

Bill arranges a group to visit the Black school that burned down, and C.P. confronts the reality of what happened there. Ann meets his wife not long after, and realizes that all of this time that he was a racist and probably just didn’t know of the alternatives to being that way.

The night of the vote approaches. The KKK members make their rounds to threaten people to vote for keeping segregation, which works in the end. Ann gets angry at him for this, but when the final vote at the meeting comes down to C.P., who is guranteed to vote against it in most people’s eyes, and he votes no.

He makes a speech about how he sees the KKK as hateful, and then he rips up his membership card in front of everyone. The KKK then comes after him and tries to ruin his gas station business, but with his actions, he won the hearts of the Black community and they come out to support him.

The movie ends explaining Ann and C.P. would tour cities to talk about their experiences together, and when he died, she gave a eulogy at his funeral.

Overall Thoughts

Why I’m most interested in this movie is because of this reason: I think there is so much to learn from these kinds of stories. We often try to slot people into these little boxes about their actions and beliefs, but this shows that some people are truly capable of changing.

A lot of really racist people have been fed lies about the group they hate, which explains why they are the way they are. People need to be somewhat open minded to realize that what they have been taught is wrong, as they have to befriend the communtiy in question and humanize them beyond some hateful slogans and slurs.

That said, I liked this movie because of how it depicts that. I don’t know if it makes a great, entertaining movie but it sure is an important one. Not much really happens in it, but this tends to be more of a character study than having more action.

Go watch it if you’re interested!

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