Real Good - Feel Good

Rating: 8/10 (22 November 2018)

Most would never mistake Hollywood marketing executives for softies, but this time they could have fooled us. How else to explain why Universal knew to release Green Book around Thanksgiving, a time of celebrating family and friendship. For, while the movie's true story may not be profound enough to change your life, it certainly altered its characters for the rest of theirs. Watching such endearing kinship play out on screen is enough to melt the heart of even the staunchest scrooge.
New York, 1962. A bouncer at the Copacabana nightclub named Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen), aka Tony Lip, is temporary laid off after the building suffers fire damage. Seeking work to support his wife (Linda Cardellini) and two sons, he is referred to Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), a virtuoso pianist who needs a driver to ferry him on a concert tour through the Deep South. But Dr. Shirley is black. His companion can't just camp out behind the wheel; he has to be able to make problems...go away.
Tony, as it happens, is quite good at this. So after some haggling over price, the two embark on a two-month journey from Macon to Memphis, Birmingham to Baton Rouge. The bigotry and violence they find along the way are no surprise; the fact that their relationship almost makes us forget about such hardship is another story.
Peter Farrelly directed this movie. Yes, the same Farrelly brother behind such comedies as Dumb and Dumber and Shallow Hall. Green Book is obviously a different bird. But while Farrelly does impress with his handling of the dramatic material, it's the humor that sets this film apart from so many others of its ilk.
Race is a tense, heavy subject. We need to be able to laugh, not just at characters on a screen but, perhaps, at ourselves. In comedy, like a universal smile, we find common ground.
Which is a perfect Segway to Tony Lip. I have to believe Mortensen had a ball
playing this character. Vallelonga is a pasta-munching Italian from Brooklyn who isn't just a presence, he's a force. Tony is the truth behind the stereotype. And despite a rough exterior, he loves his family-which, of course, includes aunts, uncles, cousins and the old couple who run the pawn shop down the street. There's more than one shade of Moonstruck lighting these tenement floors.
All this describes the character, but that's the heart of Mortensen's performance. He disappears into Tony, making him cringeworthy and loveable all at once.
Then there's Doc Shirley-talented, educated, single. Essentially the antithesis of Tony, which is the surface conceit of most 'road' movies. "They couldn't have been more different..." But, like the better entries of its genre-Midnight Run, Trains, Planes and Automobiles-Green Book finds the humanity in its headliners. Are Tony and Don really that different? And if so, why not celebrate such variety?
Ali, who won an Oscar for his supporting role in 2016's Moonlight, makes the difficult seem effortless in peeling back the doctor's layers. Shirley is a complex character-austere yet vulnerable, lonely and proud-but by the end of the movie, we know him. We love him.
When it comes to overall quality, Green Book is a unique case; there's nothing specifically "wrong" with it. That's not, though, the same as saying it's perfect. I've seen more emotional and inspiring movies, and even deeper characters. But the film is still a triumph, a 'real good feel good' experience that's hard to forget.
The biggest reason for this is because of how it addresses its racial subject matter. There is no pointing of fingers. The movie pulls no punches when recounting instances of discrimination, but that's not its focus. Instead, the spotlight shines on two men accepting one another as fallen, beautiful human beings.