Green Book is far from a subtle movie. It’s a buddy movie with a message, and it’s that racism is awful. And the movie makes said message abundantly clear all throughout its entire 130 minute runtime. It’s a very well-intentioned movie, although it often finds itself being a bit too on the nose when trying to get its point across. There’s certainly some solid character development, but there tends to be very little nuance when it comes to crafting its characters. If one thinks of the term “Oscar bait,” it’s very easy for this movie to come to mind.
The movie follows the true story of an Italian bouncer, Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga. He’s a family man, with a loving wife (Linda Cardellini) and an extended family that he always has over for Sunday dinner. He at first seems well-intentioned. He’s a tough guy, who speak with notably coarse language, but he’s also a goofball, filled with plenty of playful insults. He almost seems like the type of person one would want to hang out with for a day. Yet, he has one glaring fault, and it’s the fact that he’s a racist. Early on in the movie, there are two black plumbers who are over the house to fix a leak, which clearly bothers Tony. His wife offers them a glass of water, and when they leaves, he tosses the glasses in the trash.
It’s a truly awful moment and one that clearly establishes the type of person this supposedly lovable goofball actually is. And sure enough, in the very next scene, Tony finds himself in a similar predicament as the one we just witnessed. While looking for some extra work and winds up in the home of famed black pianist Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali). Dr. Shirley is going on tour in the Deep South for two months and is need of a chauffeur to drive him from town to town, and act as his personal assistant. Tony initially rejects his offer, but quickly comes around by the very next scene after some convincing.
The two are a mismatched pair. Tony is far from sophisticated and is also a racist, while Dr. Shirley is more refined and looks to teach Tony some manners. It’s a very Odd Couple-like setup that seems like it’s ready to present the audience more with comical hijinks through the use of touchy subject matter. Many segments are played for laughs, as Tony and Don find themselves repeatedly arguing with one another over manners and culture, with moments such as Tony educating Don about other music sensations like Little Richard. But along the way, as the two go deeper and deeper into the South, they face racism themselves as Dr. Shirley is denied entry at certain hotels, and even not allowed to eat at the same restaurants where he’s scheduled to perform, with Tony repeatedly coming to his defense. As the two overcome these obstacles during their eight weeks spent together, they quickly learn a lot more about one another and soon become close friends.
It’s a fairly simple setup with a straightforward message about the horrors of racism. And the movie does succeed at portraying how truly awful the racism in the Deep South was. There are moments in which the two get pulled over because it’s night time and a black man isn’t allowed to be out in select cities after a certain time of day. And there’s one moment in which one restaurant has to pause a show so Don can be driven back to a motel so he can use the bathroom, because the establishment won’t allow a black man to use their bathroom. And these scenes are truly heartbreaking to watch. But the problem is, in the grand scheme of things, these scenes fail to really do anything else other than just repeatedly tell us that racism is bad and nothing more. And obviously, it’s by no means a bad message but the problem is the movie seemingly abandons the route it was originally headed down in order to just tell us a “rinse and repeat” cycle of two men trying to get themselves out of sticky situations.
Tony, as likable as he can be, tends to not be a very well-written character. He’s established early on as being a racist, and the movie originally seems to be set on telling his tale of redemption as he spends time with Dr. Shirley. However, the aforementioned scene where he throws the glasses into the trash is really the only time he’s really seen as doing anything of this nature. His journey never really feels like it’s totally earned because he essentially comes around almost immediately right after being hired.
Sure, he still says some ignorant things, but they’re really nothing more than that. His comments come off more as simply needing to be educated rather than those of someone who might truly have some hate in his heart like we saw in the first scene, and for the most part, he otherwise gets along fantastically with Dr. Shirley. One would think there would be a lot more tension between the two, but their arguments seem to be more playful in tone, and there are times where it seems Tony is more knowledgeable of black culture than Don is.
Even as the movie goes on and we see more scenes in which Tony is exposed to moments that may lead him to an internal conflict of interest, he suddenly turns from the most narrow-minded individual we saw early on to one of the most liberal, accepting people around. This would be fine if these scenes were just towards the end of the movie after plenty of conflict, but we see these from almost the very beginning, which doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.
And the big problem we may face when watching all this is the fact that, despite the mixed message and shaky journey, these little vignettes on their own do actually work. One of the movie’s biggest problems is the fact that its parts are much more appealing than the sum total of said parts. The biggest conflict that comes out of watching this movie is our own, as we find ourselves liking characters who we probably shouldn’t like, because of all these solid moments they tend to have that are entertaining to watch, even if they don’t seamlessly work in the overall story.
The movie tends to be very funny at times, and its biggest strength comes from the laughs it manages to bring us. The scenes in which Tony and Don are driving around, discussing Little Richard and Kentucky Fried Chicken, while arguing over Tony’s coarse buffoonish nature, tend to put a smile on one’s face. Despite Tony being a poorly written character, he does manage to get in some fairly solid one-liners, while Dr. Shirley plays a very good straight man to cartoonish antics. The smiles they manage to put on our faces do allow us to warm up to both of them, and it makes it easier to feel bad for them when they wind up in situations where they face deep-seeded hatred from the locals.
Part of what makes these two characters so likable is the pair of committed performances from both Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali. While the duo’s journey is a bit contrived, their actual performances are far from it. When the movie’s at its most dramatic, neither dive into heavy-handed, overly emotional territory, and when the movie is at its funniest, the duo are easily very likable and there’s a sense that they’re both having some fun with their roles, both getting in some good one-liners when the movie ventures into Odd Couple territory.
Ali’s performance in particular is one of the film’s highlights. While the movie overall lacks nuance, Ali brings with him the closest thing we get to nuance. While he’s the straight man of the duo, his performance is far from just being reactionary to Tony’s humorous statements. Don Shirley at first comes off like he’s more a stick in the mud, but Ali’s performance quickly gets us to look past that and show us someone who clearly wants to help a misguided individual better themselves, while struggling with a few flaw of his own. While the film is problematic, Ali gives a performance that once again firmly establishes himself as one of the better actors working in the industry these days.
Green Book has good intentions, but the way in which it gets its message across could have been better executed. Seemingly a tale of redemption at first, it quickly abandons its original message and becomes a message movie that’s too on-the-nose and fails to offer anything new to say about its subject matter, instead giving us a straightforward buddy movie centered around sensitive material. It shows us two men on a journey with an end result that doesn’t feel totally earned. Yet, it does contain its fair share of very entertaining scenes, with some solid laughs and heartbreaking moments that work better on their own rather than within the story’s overall context, as well as containing some great performances from both Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali. One may find themselves conflicted watching this movie, as the movie has just as many great moments, yet just as many glaringly obvious faults. For some, it’s not easy to look past the movie’s issues. But for those who are more “glass half-full” types and can forgive this movie’s faults, there’s plenty that will put a smile on one’s face.
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