Green Book

Wow!

Yes, I know it’s been a long time since I wrote my last review for the blog (the longest break ever). With endless travel and buying a house in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, I finally reached a point where I barely had time to watch films, let alone write reviews. 

It’s also been a long time since I saw my last Wow film, which I was waiting for to help kickstart my review-writing. I wasn’t expecting Green Book to be that Wow film, but it surprised me in all the right ways and currently has a place in my top three films of 2018.

The biggest surprise Green Book offers is that it was directed and co-written by Peter Farrelly, whose biggest claim to fame is the two Dumb and Dumber films, which I refuse to even watch, as they belong to my least favourite genre (stupid comedies). This fact alone kept my expectations in check. But Farrelly’s direction and writing were almost flawless in Green Book.

Green Book is set in 1962 and stars Viggo Mortensen as Tony Lip, a bouncer in New York City’s biggest nightclub (Copacabana). When the club closes for two months (for renovations), Tony looks for a temporary job and ends up being hired by a well-known pianist (Dr. Don Shirley, played by Mahershala Ali) to be his chauffeur on a two-month American concert tour that focuses on the southern states. An uneducated Italian bouncer and self-proclaimed bullshit-artist with racist tendencies (he and his friends regularly refer to black people as eggplants) seems like a strange choice to be a chauffeur for a black musician with three doctorates, but Shirley needs the muscle and intimidation of someone like Tony to protect him on a tour that includes states like Mississippi and Alabama at a time when such states had very racist attitudes (understatement).

As one would expect on such a long road trip, with only Tony and Dr. Shirley in the car, the two men have plenty of opportunity to argue and discover just how different their worlds are. But as they face the challenge of spending so much time together and of the many racist altercations they encounter along the way, something changes in both men. I will say no more about the plot, as I recommend Green Book to all readers without reservation and want to spoil as little as possible.

However, I will say that Green Book suffers from a fair amount of predictability, which would potentially knock at least half a star off its rating if it wasn’t for the fact that the film is based on a true story. This road trip really happened (if not exactly in this way). And what makes Green Book a great film is precisely the relationship/chemistry between Tony and Dr. Shirley during that road trip. Mortensen and Ali are sensational, delivering spot-on performances that, with the help of great dialogue-writing) create pure movie magic. The rest of the acting is also solid, with a special nod to Linda Cardellini as Tony’s wife, Dolores.

Aiding in the magic of watching Dr. Shirley and Tony is the lush cinematography and excellent score that create the perfect period setting. I felt I was back in 1962. And the new turquoise cadillac (my first car was a 1962 light-blue Chevy) was a nice touch.

Since racism is a major theme in Green Book, some critics complain that the film doesn’t treat racism with the seriousness it deserves, but rather as a minor problem in the 1960’s. I didn’t get that sense at all. Sure, Green Book, in spite of numerous dark scenes, is a relatively light film that doesn’t explore racist structures in any depth. But that lightness was one of the many pleasant surprises of the film and, again, it’s based on a true story and is not meant to be a film that digs deep into racism in the U.S. then and now (other films made this year have done that).

One complaint I do have is that Green Book is such a male film, but even here I think efforts were made, and, under the circumstances, it would have been difficult for this story to pass the Bechdel test.

Green Book gets a solid **** and will very likely have s spot in my top five films of the year.