Movie Review: Green Book

Green Book *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Peter Farrelly.

Written by: Nick Vallelonga and Brian Hayes Currie and Peter Farrelly.

Starring: Viggo Mortensen (Tony Lip), Mahershala Ali (Don Shirley), Linda Cardellini (Dolores), Sebastian Maniscalco (Johnny Venere), Brian Stepanek (Graham Kindell), Iqbal Theba (Amit), Tom Virtue (Morgan Anderson), Joe Cortese (Joey Loscudo), Dimiter D. Marinov (Oleg).

 

I knew as I watched Green Book at TIFF this September – before the movie was even over – that this was a film that was going to be ripped to shreds by think pieces when it came out in November. This isn’t to say that I don’t think that the movie doesn’t deserve to be examined and taken to task for its view of race relations – this is a film that takes place in the 1960s, and it probably could have been made almost frame for frame in that decade, and people would still see it as old fashioned, in much the same way some at the time viewed Stanley Kramer’s Oscar winning Guess Whose Coming to Dinner? As phony and retrograde. It’s a film that functions as a kind of Driving Miss Daisy (1989) with the races switched – and hasn’t much updated the racial politics from that time either – and many even then pointed out the irony of the Oscars giving Driving Miss Daisy the Best Picture Oscar for its kind and gentle view of race relations in the same year they almost completely ignored Spike Lee’s incendiary Do the Right Thing – still the best film ever made about race in America. Some of the same complaints will be leveled at Green Book – and not without reason. In a year that has already seen films like Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, Spike Lee’s BlackKklansman and Steve McQueen’s Widows – and soon to get Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk – it will be interesting to say the least if the Academy embraces the retro vibe of Green Book, which does nothing if not comfort its white viewers, while those other films defiantly do not.

 

I know all of this, and still, I have to admit that I enjoyed Green Book a great deal.  Part of that may well be seeing the film at TIFF, before too many of those think pieces were published (I assume, I’m writing this the week after TIFF, and already the criticism has heated up following Green Book’s win for the People’s Choice Award). Seeing it with a couple of thousands of people at the Princess of Wales – most of whom were likely Green Book’s ideal audience (mostly white, mostly affluent, most liberal leaning, etc.) the film played like gangbusters – each joke landing perfectly, and each subtle plea for tolerance reaching a sympathetic audience. And the two lead performances by Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali are so good that for two hours or so, I was able to overlook the obvious flaws in the movie, and just enjoy it. I’d be being dishonest if I didn’t cop to that.

 

The movie takes place in 1962, and focuses on Tony Lip (Mortensen), an Italian-American from the Bronx (THE prototypical Italian American from the Bronx), who works as a bouncer at the Copa. He knows gangsters – is perhaps even friends with them – but he doesn’t want to become one. He’s an honest guy, despite the fact that he’s proud of being a bullshitter. The Copa is closing for renovations for a few months, and he needs a job. Someone recommends him as a driver – so he shows up for an interview. Whatever he was expecting, it certainly wasn’t Don Shirley (Ali)- a highly educated, well-spoken, refined black man. Shirley is a musician, and he’s about to embark on a two-month tour of the Deep South. He needs a driver – someone who will get him to all gigs on time, and can handle any problems along the way. Despite the fact that Tony is racist – we see him in an early scene throw out the two glasses his wife serves two black repairmen lemonade in – he takes the job. It’s good money. These two couldn’t possibly be more different. You know what will happen from there.

 

Green Book doesn’t deviate in any way from what you expect it to do. The two start off hating each other, but as the days and weeks go by, and they spend more and more time in each other’s company, they get to know each other as people – and they start to respect each other, as they see what they have to go through. The film is directed by Peter Farrelly – one half of the Farrelly brothers, perhaps sensing that he and brothers once brilliant touch with gross out comedies has been lost (he hasn’t made a film since 2014’s Dumb and Dumber To, hasn’t made a good film since 2011’s Hall Pass, and hasn’t made one of the Farrelly classics since 2003’ Stuck on You). He brings a light touch of the proceedings here – and that is what is required. The film is basically a comedy, with some heavier moments exposing the racism of the South thrown in.

 

What makes the film work is the two lead performances. There is no way Mortensen should be as good as Tony Lip as he is – the character as written if basically one step above the Pizza Guy on The Simpsons in terms of being an Italian American stereotype. But he makes him sweet and lovable – even when he’s throwing out those glasses, you don’t much sense any real hate in him. He knows who he is, and is comfortable with that. Ali is even better as Shirley. It’s not the type of role I would expect Ali to play, but he does it to the hilt. If Mortensen gives the stereotype he’s playing sweetness, Ali gives the stereotype he’s playing depth – he walks into the movie, and you think you know everything about him – and you don’t. This may not be a deep role, but Ali brings it anyway.

 

Yes, you can complain that Green Book lets its audience off the hook – by setting the film in the past, in the South, it lets its target audience feel superior to the racist hicks on display, and lets you think that things have gotten better all because Tony Lip learns to give up his prejudices. I’m not going to argue that isn’t the case here. What I will say though is that the film is sweet and funny and deeply humane, with two great performances. I would have liked to see more depth then there is here, but taken for what it is, Green Book is an entertaining movie – the very definition of a crowd-pleaser.