A movie to savour

Rating: 9/10 (4 February 2019)

This is one of those movies that no-one wants to leave when the credits roll round. Based on a true story it plots the unfolding of an unlikely friendship between diamond in the rough Bronx-born Italian Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) and Dr Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali). Shirley is a concert pianist who needs a driver and some protective muscle as he tours the prejudiced South during the early 60's. Shirley is too cultured to fit in with his own race but too black to fit in with the white one. His internal conflict, Tony's external one as a coloured man's minder, and the friendship that develops make for riveting cinema. There is drama, hilarity, education and pathos in this wonderful movie. A masterpiece.