Green Book

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I can just hear the Hollywood pitch now, “ya gotta make this movie! It’s ‘Driving Miss Daisy,’ only with the roles reversed! People can feel good about how far we’ve come!” Well, sort of. This is a lovely, charming movie, as long as you know what it is and what it isn’t, and you can take it as it is. Based very loosely (as I understand it) on the real friendship between Dr. Don Shirley (a cultured, well-educated, wealthy, gay, Black man, played by Mahershala Ali) and Anthony Vallelonga (aka Tony Lip, a brash, vulgar, working-class, straight, Italian-American, played by Viggo Mortensen). Dr Shirley hired Vallelonga in the Fall/Winter of 1962 to drive him/protect him on his musical tour of the Deep South. Heart-warming hilarity ensues. This is a feel good movie painted in broad strokes. Most of the characters are caricatures, none more so than Tony Lip. Mortensen hits on every possible stereotype of a 60s Italian-American with such glee that it is near impossible not to laugh along. He chews through every line he is given in much the same way Tony chews threw the endless supplies of food he devours– with great gusto and little finesse. Mortensen’s commitment to the eating needed for this role seems as strenuous as any method acting required of Bale or Day-Lewis. But, it’s worth remembering that Mortensen is a world class actor, not some hack. And he may well get an Oscar nod for this role, not because of the bigness of this performance, but because of the small gestures he managed to slip into such a big character. As loud and over-the-top as Tony was, you could always see him thinking. Mortensen beautifully captured the kind, thoughtful human being under all the bravado. It would have been easy to just play Tony as one note, but he was as complex as any of Dr. Shirley’s piano performances. Speaking of which, Ali is another award-winning actor with tremendous talent. His skill is easier to see in this performance of the prim, overly-controlled, and deeply lonely Dr. Shirley. If you have seen him in “Moonlight,” “House of Cards,” or “Luke Cage,” then you know his range. In many ways, this film was essentially an “Odd Couple” buddy comedy, and it is so easy for the “uptight” one to play the straight man for the “loose cannon” (think “Lethal Weapon,” “48 Hours,” or “The Heat”). It’s a credit to Ali’s skills that he can make his character both rigid and genuinely funny (and laughing-with-him funny, not just laughing-at-him funny). In fact, I suspect most viewers will find themselves laughing throughout the entire film. Even the ugliness of racism in the South is handled with so much concern for the audience, lest anyone be uncomfortable for too long, that it always resolves well, fairly quickly, and often with another laugh. This film is sweet going down, from start to finish. In that way, it is very like “Driving Miss Daisy,” in that it wants to talk about racial issues but only in a way designed not to offend the majority of its primarily White audience. Some might legitimately take issue with that. You could argue that we are long past platitudes and gentle pats on the back. We are long past whitewashing our past and feeling smug about how far we have come. We need films that are angry, confrontational, unflinching, and do not care how uncomfortable they make a White audience. Now, perhaps more than in many decades, we need to name racism for exactly what it is, pull no punches, and leave no one (especially the audience) unscathed. I would agree. We do need those films and I am delighted that we are starting to see more of them (“Get Out,” “Sorry to Bother You,” “Blackkklansman,” “Blindspotting,” “The Hate U Give,” just to name a few). But, I don’t think the need for those films, as real as that is, means that films like this one don’t also have value. It is not such a bad thing that we can laugh at/laugh with two very different human beings learning how to respect and care for each other. We could use some more of that in today’s world also.