Mahershali Ali is good, and Viggo Mortensen is great. Oscar material!

Rating: 9/10 (26 November 2018)

The basic storyline for this movie, a very personal look at the state of race relations in America in 1962, is all set up for penetrating drama, but one thing I didn't expect going in to the the theater last night is how funny it is. It's an Odd Couple buddy movie, and the script gives lots of chances for driver/bouncer/jack-of-all-trades Tony (played by Viggo Mortensen) to bounce off pianist virtuoso Don (Mahershala Ali) as they gradually come to understand each other's very different worlds during a two-month road trip.
Ali plays a rather restrained role this time out as a famed classically trained pianist who has learned to keep his temper and maintain his dignity in the face of constant, daily insults, slights, and (at times) physically dangerous attacks simply because he's black. On concert tours we see that he keeps to himself, drinks pretty heavily at night, and is flat-out lonely. But this movie really belongs to Mortensen, who has to be the best actor around never (yet) to win an Oscar. As he has done with all of his movie roles, he completely and utterly vanishes into his character, down to the smallest gesture, details of accent, and even weight gain (to match Tony's habit of constantly eating mediocre food accompanied by chain smoking). He's an actor's actor, and I sure hope his work gets recognized this time out.
The script has a pretty big cast overall, because Tony and Don meet a lot of other people on their extended tour (in addition to very entertaining occasional cuts back to Tony's extended Italo-American family in the Bronx as Tony's wife (Linda Cardeliini) reads out his letters from the road). They're all excellent. Go see this movie, you won't regret it.