Patronizing

Rating: 3/10 (10 April 2019)

Just.....no.
"Green Book" is the kind of movie my mom likes, and trust me, that's not a compliment. It's for people who are willing to watch a movie about racism as long as the black character who's the victim of it is whiter than any of the white characters. It's for people who want to pat themselves on the back for being open to a "serious" movie that doesn't challenge a single belief or make them the slightest bit uncomfortable. It's for people who like music cues that tell them exactly what they're supposed to be feeling at every single moment. It's for people who think the answer to racial problems is for whites and blacks to compromise and find some middle ground where they can agree to overcome their differences, as if black people have any responsibility in the fact that they have been marginalized ever since the very first one set foot on American soil. No one who is the slightest bit tuned in to racial problems in contemporary America could possibly stomach this movie.
Personally, I found it to be patronizing and damn near insulting. It consists of scene after scene of our black protagonist getting himself in trouble, only to be saved from the situation by the white guy. By the end, the white guy has taught him how to be more black and embrace his own culture, which in this movie is defined by liking fried chicken, listening to Little Richard and Aretha Franklin, and playing some funky piano. Oh but wait, defenders will say. The white guy learns something too, like how to be less racist and how to write really good love letters to his wife. In fact, the entire guys' racist family learns to not be racist by the end and welcomes the black guy to their Christmas dinner. They're just casually racist, you see, but not racist in ways that really matter. Barf.
Seriously, this is the Sesame Street version of racism. In a year that gave us "BlackkKlansman," "Blindspotting," "The Hate U Give," and "Sorry to Bother You," all movies made by minorities about the black experience in America, it's pretty telling of where we are as culture right now that the race movie mainstream America glommed on to was this piece of feel-good hoo-hah. Mainstream America doesn't want to have its beliefs challenged, and it certainly doesn't want to be told it's part of the problem. Instead, it wants a hallmark movie that makes it feel good about itself.
One thing saves "Green Book" from being an utter waste of time, and that is the performance of Viggo Mortensen.
Grade: D