The Best of Enemies (2019)

What makes The Best of Enemies special is how it turns a true, volatile chapter of American history into an intimate, human story about change that feels earned, not preached. Taraji P. Henson brings fierce, funny, lived-in power to Ann Atwater, and Sam Rockwell gives C.P. Ellis the kind of layered performance that lets you watch a worldview crack in real time, with Babou Ceesay as the steady force pushing the town toward an uncomfortable reckoning. The film’s tone is tense but ultimately hopeful, finding surprising moments of humor and grace without sanding down the ugliness of racism or the sting of the language, and its relevance lands with a quiet punch. It’s not for viewers who want their historical dramas gentle or their politics absent, but if you’re on the fence, this one rewards you with nuance, urgency, and two performances that stay with you.

The Best of Enemies wants to be an uplifting, fact-based reconciliation drama about two people forced to confront the ugliness of segregation head-on, and it does land a few emotionally charged moments. But it often slips into a familiar “prejudice gets cured by personal connection” formula, with pacing that feels dutiful rather than gripping and direction that rarely finds a fresh angle. The biggest sticking point is the perspective: the film can spend so much time humanizing C.P. Ellis that Ann Atwater and the wider Black community’s struggle starts to feel like supporting material in their own story. If you’re looking for a sharper, more historically probing civil-rights film centered firmly on Black agency, this may frustrate you, though Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell do solid work within the movie’s limits.