Meh...

Rating: 5/10 (12 November 2019)

The premise of Green Book certainly sounds intriguing, but this film adaptation is bland as can be. The acting is good overall, but the direction is perfunctory at best - Peter Farrelly's approach seems both heavy-handed and simplistic. It doesn't help that the story favors the less interesting of the two lead characters - it would really have been nice to learn more about Don Shirley. And more about the actual Green Book, which gets barely a mention in the screenplay despite the impression the film's title gives that it's an important element of the plot.
The overall result feels like a by-the-numbers exercise, designed to make a potentially thorny subject palatable for the mainstream. It's mildly thought-provoking in a few spots and mildly entertaining in a few others, but it contains virtually no surprises of any kind, and it ultimately doesn't illuminate much. I didn't hate Green Book, but I am frankly mystified by the number of awards and accolades it has received. I found it to be a thoroughly unremarkable movie.