Extremely engaging and charming yet tough

Rating: 10/10 (15 March 2020)

Set in the 1960s, Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) an Italian-American bouncer is hired to be the driver for Dr. Shirley (Mahershala Ali) an African-American musician who is going on tour through the American Deep South. What entails is a deeply complex and honest study of the relationship between these two characters and that is the absolute heart and soul of the film. The two central performances are outstandingly good; Mortensen continues to impress and creates a very comic yet grounded in reality character in Tony here; a family man who is proud to provide, loves them very dearly, just above as much as he loves food! He really packed on the pounds for this one; good for him! He was insanely funny at various points throughout the film as well as being a reliable source of comfort for Dr Shirley in the confrontational scenes. His wife Dolores is played fantastically by Linda Cardellini! Ali is really amazing in the role of Shirley too; a very well spoken and dignified man who just asks for a very simple thing from fellow human beings; respect. He is the emotional undercurrent of the film and helps to bring that emotion out through Tony also. Of course this is set during a time of extreme prejudice and bigotry which creates the more tough to watch and infuriating scenes in the film; all of Shirley's loneliness and pain is caused by people mistreating him just for the colour of his skin. It's unbelievable to even imagine that these grim events occurred in human history and it is highlighted here and exposed for the true crime it really was. Unfortunately, we still see this sort of behaviour today even if it's in milder forms and we can only hope for a time when any discrimination just goes away. It's a film that knows to take its subject matter seriously as it should be but also manages to be comedic aswell as the interaction between Tony and Shirley for the most part is very funny while managing to be profoundly moving. I could talk for longer but in summary! I think it's a masterpiece