Green Book

From the director of Dumb and Dumber and Shallow Hal comes a well-meaning, fact-based entertainment that’s unfortunately both dumb and shallow. Based on the true story of a tough but lovable Italian-American bouncer from the Bronx, who takes a job driving (and “handling things” for) a world-class Black pianist on a concert tour through the Jim Crow South. The driver, Tony “Tony Lip” Vallelonga (played with gusto by Viggo Mortensen), starts out as the kind of well-meaning, live-and-let-live-unless-somebody-gets-out-of-line guy, whose casual racism is a product of his era and merely there to show us the starting point of a man headed for a Driving Miss Daisy style awakening.  Dr. Don Shirley (played with the quiet, elegant reserve we’ve come to expect from Mahershala Ali—who won an Oscar in 2016 for his small but pivotal roll in Moonlight) is a refined and cultured but uptight Black man. He’s a well-know trope to moviegoers of the past forty years—a brilliant guy with a troubled soul because he can’t fit in with either the elite White folks he hobnobs with or “his own people.” As these two embark on their road trip they must rely on The Negro Motorist Green Book, Victor Hugo Green’s annual travel guide that laid out all the establishments in the Deep South that were open to (and safe for) African-Americans. 

White audiences who’ve never heard of the “Green Book” and know little of the Jim Crow era will undoubtedly get a lot out of this picture, and clearly they are the audience the filmmakers are aiming at. The movie is co-written and co-produced by Nick Vallelonga, one of Tony Lip’s sons, so it’s not surprising that the story is told through Tony’s eyes. But movies that explore racism through a white lens are so commonplace they’re a cliché in and of themselves. Usually running at least twenty minutes too long (because they are “important”), these self-congratulatory, feel-good films reinforce the view that “real racism” was something that happened long, long ago and was practiced by evil bigots or ignorant hypocrites. 

Back when Sidney Poitier was starring in features like The Defiant Ones (1958) and In the Heat of the Night (1967) the balance between the experiences of the White lead and the Black lead and the tensions separating them felt appropriate and riveting. But for the last forty years, studio prestige-pictures like the aforementioned Best Picture winner Driving Miss Daisy (1989) have forsaken their role of provoking and challenging audiences in favor of comforting and reassuring us. Is it any surprise movies like this are usually released around Thanksgiving? 

Director Peter Farrelly, who usually co-writes and co-directs broad comedies with his brother Bobby—their best work includes There's Something About Mary (1998) and the American remake of Fever Pitch (2005)—focuses on the relationship between the two men, who formed an unlikely friendship as a result of their road trip. There’s plenty of Odd Couple style humor, which feels obvious but never forced. The stars have good chemistry with each other, and the bond they form comes across sincerely. But these are not demanding roles; they’re little more than caricatures. The script provides each star with Oscar-baiting moments that only land because the actors never overplay the material. 

Green Book glides along fairly effortlessly, and its simplistic message goes down with out much fuss. You can’t help but enjoy spending time with these two guys—it’s not like, say, Al Pacino’s Oscar-baiting, pretentious, Holiday road-picture Sent of a Woman (1999), where you can’t stand being cooped up with either character. But movies like this should have long ago evolved beyond the facile formula they’re so quick to embrace.

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True story of Bronx tough-guy hired to drive a world-class Black pianist around the Jim Crow South makes for comforting holiday entertainment, but movies like this should have long ago evolved beyond the facile formula they’re so quick to embrace.