Are you the sum total of your parts?

Rating: 7/10 (28 February 2019)

Finally saw the Green Book and I understand why there are some dissenting opinions about its merits. My take is it is a solidly good picture, but it also doesn't quite hit the brilliant mark for me as well. Still, what tips the scale beyond being just solidly good is not on the artistry of the making but in the new angle of looking at racial inequality. It seems to suggest for some people, their prejudices based on skin color are more innately grounded and thus, creating almost absurd contradictions in social acceptancy. In short, a person is not quite the totality of his sum, but a collection of fragmented personas which are then treated differently and accordingly depending on the context of what he should be. This is what makes the film so uniquely interesting, this point of view. Viggo Mortensen whom I hardly recognized as the same actor who did Lord of the Rings, or The Road, or Captain Fantastic did a fantastic and transformative job with his character. As for Mahershala Ali, well, he was at least a class or two above in his abilities as an actor in True Detective. Based on this, I must hand it to the director of this show, Peter Farrelly. He is only solidly good, but not quite brilliant yet.