To
cry in the first half hour of a film means you are looking ahead to a
picture filled with emotion. “Black or White” starts with  scene in the
hospital where Eliot (Kevin Costner) just lost his wife Carole (Jennifer
Ehle) in a car accident. They had been raising their biracial
granddaughter Eloise (Jillian Estell) after the death of their daughter
during childbirth and the father Regie (Andre Holland), a drug addict,
had taken off. Her paternal grandmother, Rowena, (Octavia Spencer) who
had been okay with the arrangement now decided, with the help of her
lawyer brother, Jeremiah, (Anthony Mackie) to fight for custody of
Eloise.
There is a little heavy handed melodrama here and there but
none, pardon the pun, of the characters are black or white. We see the
difference between living in Santa Monica’s white enclave and South
Central’s Black area in Los Angeles along with the Mexican housekeeper
for the lawyer Eliot and the very much extended family of daughters,
sons, sisters, brothers, nephews, nieces living under the same roof and
sustained by Rowena, also known as Grandmother Wee Wee.
The director,
who also wrote the screenplay, Mike Binder, based the story on his own
family involving a biracial nephew. Though he faces some of the Black
versus White problems, including the use of the N word, he skirts around
some of the major issues and a blow up near the end seems completely
contrived to get to a Hollywood ending. He also errs in writing the
character Fay (Gillian Jacobs) completely unnecessary to the film and
making Eloise’s math tutor and piano teacher, Duvan (Mpho Koaho) 
multilingual, speaks only 8 languages, seems to have written published
papers on almost all subjects talked about, just a little bit too much
though he does supply some humor.
Though there is nothing special
regarding his direction of the movie the acting is strong all around
with star turns by both Octavia Spencer and Kevin Costner while Jillian
Estell, as the 7 year old, is cute at the right times, playful at others
and serious enough when she is required to be. The differences between
Holland and Mackie as brothers are a little hard to take to accept them
as such but individually they are their characters.
An aside
regarding critics: I wanted to see this film based strictly on previews
but if I had read reviews before I went I would never have gone. Reading
the reviews I just shook my head at how many people will miss seeing a
good film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqlE-7PP7Ho