Rocking!

Rating: 9/10 (24 November 2018)

The Holidays often bring too many quality choices on our screens and all families have a hard time choosing a quality film to enjoy. As a mixed couple now in our 40's we got to check the Green Book and what a beautiful thing that was.
The Director, Peter Farrelly, which is most known as one of the Farelly brothers that penned funny, yet on the offensive side of things, movies when I was coming of age, surprised me greatly here because of the engaging rhythm and subtle yet powerful approach he instilled in this particular work.
It is a road trip movie, with tropes that we may expect but also with just the right amount of surprises, softness, power and explosive moments all audiences like to experience.
In the political context we are living in, revisiting such a disgraceful period of the American history with such poise is actually remarkable. It could be the breath of the original story and characters we explore, it could be that we indeed learned from decades of subtle and not so subtle struggles, but this movie instead of being sanctimonious, dragging your spirit down or simply being boring gives you that elusive but so lovely feeling that the world can be right, can be funny, and certainly can still be surprising.
There undoubtedly are recognizable steps found in most road trip movies present here, but the fact that you are limited spatially and morally by the external boundaries shaping the lives of the protagonists, your life, following theirs, expand in such a way that there is a real delicate pleasure found in undertaking this journey with actors portraying these imperfect characters with gusto and inspiration.
The laughs are authentic, the music is a pure pleasure and the character development is genuine. It bears to talk for a moment about the beautiful recreations of the 1962 urban landscapes, the approach to costume design and the fabulous sets for the interior design giving depth to the story. It shows you how people lived and worked vividly, including how tight spaces were.
It really is the kind of film you can enjoy by yourself, as a couple, with the whole family, and even your whole congregation. You would come out of it eager to take a moment to discover the soundtrack, to share the feelings of kindness and decency it inspires, and even better, to root for this little movie that could...
Let's be particularly glad to know that in this day and age there are courageous souls that choose to produce, write, direct and play in movies that are willing to face history rather than discredit, malign or ignore its lessons, as well as its surreal and malicious impact on the lives of those that have no power and means to protect themselves.
We need more of those and until then let's appreciate this wonderfully engaging and satisfying movie that is the Green Book, and be thankful for Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen chemistry and skills as actors. They rocked it!