Enjoyable movie in spite of its flaws

Rating: 8/10 (17 March 2019)

Green Book tells the presumably true story of white racist guy hired as the chauffeur for a black musician doing a tour of the deep south. It's predictable, following the well-worn path to racial understanding of similar films, but it's got solid performances and is engaging throughout.
There have been various criticisms of this movie. Don Shirley's family says its ridiculous to claim he'd never eaten fried chicken before having it forced on him by a white guy, and that's probably true. But it works as a way to contrast the plebeian white guy with the sophisticated black man, and it's silly to expect any Hollywood movie to not be at least half fiction.
(It's hard to know who's telling the truth. Shirley's family has complained a lot, but from what I've read they don't seem to have been that close to him. The movie was written by the chauffeur's son, who says Don Shirley himself approved it, but the guy also echoed Donald Trump's lie that thousands of American Muslims cheered during 9/11, which makes me consider him inherently untrustworthy.)
The movie has also been criticized as yet another movie funneling racism through a white lens; this is the chauffeur's story, not Shirley's. But because a movie is part of an unfortunate trend doesn't mean that individual movie isn't good, it just means Hollywood has trouble breaking out of its boxes.
The title does, however, bug me. The Green Book was a guide on where to find hotels where black people could stay at a time when many hotels were whites only. It's a good example of what black people had to deal with, it was written for black people by black people, the existence of the book is a condemnation of the white culture that made it necessary, and even though it's a fairly insignificant plot point this is the title they chose. This is a movie about a white guy learning about racism; why make the title something so much a part of a particular black experience? It feels a little like theft.
Still, I really enjoyed it. I wouldn't say it was super memorable, and it seems like a movie I'll have pretty much forgotten in a year (so maybe I should give it a 7?) yet it's mix of humor and pathos make it a very enjoyable experience.