Social but personal

Rating: 10/10 (1 April 2019)

Green Book is a crowd-pleaure and Oscar winner not because it deals with racial tensions in the segregated American recent past, but because it deals with two very human and humane characters who form an unlikely friendship in the midst of a lifechanging and life-affirming road trip. A hallmark of a great film and journey is that the audience or at least myself was left wanting more and deeply care for these characters based on real life people and events. I would have happily hopped on their next road trip to continue to share the intimate details of their endearing bond.
The screenplay lead by real life Nick Vallelonga is absolutely absorbing and drips with laugh out loud humour and characterization from the two leads and also some of the supporting cast. Mortenson plays the role of his life and has all the maneurism, talk and conflicted emotions of his flawed and interesting character. Ali assures a stoic and unsympathetic complex personality who excels, perseveres and has is own proclivities. He won the supporting actor Oscar for this while Mortenson was nominated for best lead but was in tough company with Cooper and Malek who won. The screenplay also won best original and deservedly so. Editing was also nominated and the story could not have been really told in a much better way dramatically while hitting all the humour and emotional marks.
In the end, although racism, classim, homophobia and other strong and important social subjects are dealt with extremely well, the strength of Green Book lies in its capacity to allow us to discover an average man and his family while changing his preconceived ideas and giving contrasts and thought to an accomplished and inspiring musical genius. Genuinely rewarding cinema and highly recommended.