The second release this week based on real events is Green Book. It is 1962 in New York, Italian American Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) is looking for work. He is offered a position of driver of a black pianist, Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), who is embarking a concert tour of the Southern States. On a surface level, this film is pretty enjoyable.
The leads are good enough, and it’s had to resist such a warm hearted road movie. There is fish out of water fun to be had as the uncouth Tony attends posh functions and the uptight Don warms to Tony’s more down to earth ways. However, it is also totally predictable Oscar bait. Tony is shown to have racist beliefs but those don’t really manifest when he meets Don. The story follows the expected arc: they clash to start with, they forge an alliance until their tentative friendship seems to be ruined as they fall out before reconciling and ending close mates.
For a story involving racism, organised crime, police corruption and suppressed homosexuality, this is pretty bland. The feel good nature means there is little jeopardy, and the message is pretty obvious. Compared to the scathing BlacKkKlansman, also on the Best Picture Oscar nomination list, it feels very old fashioned.
I don’t want to appear to be completely negative. This is a film that is easy to enjoy, but has little new to say.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10