Movie Reaction: Green Book

Formula: 1 / Driving Miss Daisy

 

There's two strategies to making a movie about race: hard and soft. Going hard means not letting anyone off the hook and making it clear to people how much of a problem racism still is. Going soft means showing the incremental improvements and simplifying the message in order to scare off as few people as possible. Both strategies have their merit and work better in different circumstances. Going hard has a better chance of waking people up. It's also much more likely to turn people off because it's confrontational. Going soft gets more people willing to listen. It also can lead people to believe that everything is fixed.

Green Book is a soft take on racism. It hides behind the 1960s and the South as a way to distance itself from today's discussion of race. Because of that, it's had a tortured awards campaign already. It was the people's choice when it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival but every single thing I've read about it uses words like "lightweight" or "dated". Oddly, no one has said they disliked the movie. They just always use backhanded language or add a lot of qualifiers. And, I'm sorry to say, I'm going to do the same thing.

Green Book is based on the true story of an Italian-American working-class bouncer, Tony (Viggo Mortensen), who accepts a job driving and protecting an African American concert pianist, Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), on a tour through the deep South in the early 60s. Tony is lightly racist (i.e. he's happy to work with black people but doesn't like when a couple African American plumbers work in his apartment). Over the course of the Southern tour, Tony witnesses firsthand the kind of systemic racism that Dr. Shirley has to deal with that Tony didn't think existed anymore. The two men form a friendship in this time and Tony eventually sees the error of his ways. It's hard to sum up the plot without rolling your eyes a bit. You've seen this story before and it's problematic in exactly the ways you expect. Telling stories about race from the white guy's perspective is kind of like making Johnny the main character in The Karate Kid. Tony is the ideal white guy for this movie: his racism is mainly the result of being fairly uneducated and has never really thought about it. Dr. Shirley is the ideal black guy because he's perfectly mannered and isolated from the street-level racism that would've challenged his demeanor. In other words, Dr. Shirley has the moral high ground in every way. Frankly, if these two men can't find a way to get along, then no one can.

As long as Green Book isn't the only discussion about race in cinema* though, there's nothing wrong with enjoying this movie and how it chooses to make it's message. Green Book is a great reminder that change can be slow and sometimes, the most radical move is to try to change the system from within. It's not always the most satisfying method, but it still requires great strength. Not every story has to be life or death, so the stakes being lower in this shouldn't take away from it.

*At the top of my head, in 2018, Black Panther, Sorry to Bother You, Blindspotting, If Beale Street Could Talk, Widows and The Hate U Give all had more modern, nuanced dissection of race in America. We aren't "done" by any means, but Green Book isn't the only source of discussion.

Most of the enjoyment in Green Book comes from the two lead performances. Viggo Mortensen packed on a lot of pounds for the role and fully embodies the well-meaning meathead Tony. It's hard to remember him as  the lithe, stoic Aragorn. Mahershala Ali is similarly unrecognizable in this if I try to think back to him in Moonlight. They play the parts exactly as needed and sell their ability to become friends. The most striking thing about Peter Farrelly's direction is that I would never associate this as being from the same guy who co-directed Dumb & Dumber and There's Something About Mary. Beyond that, the direction is pretty invisible. Linda Cardellini gets a small supporting role as Tony's wife, and it's another reminder that the whole industry missed the mark by not finding more for her to do after Freaks and Geeks.

Green Book is an enjoyable movie that falls just short of being memorable. I have a hard time seeing anyone coming away from this movie saying they hated it. I fell short of loving it though. The jokes aren't quite clever enough. The banter between the leads is fine but really should crackle more with an Oscar winner and Oscar nominee delivering it. The uplifting moments don't get me far off the ground. I keep coming back to Hidden Figures as a comparison. Hidden Figures is an all-around better movie because it does everything about 10% better than Green Book. That's enough to recommend Green Book but not enough to gush about it. At the end of the day, I'm happy to watch a genial movie with a nice message. We could all use a little optimism and a reminder that good things can come out of bad situations.

One Last Thought: Did anyone else from the South get worried as soon as they saw their city show up in white letters at the bottom of the screen? Personally, I was tracing their path, hoping they wouldn't stop in Louisville for the night, because the second your city gets mentioned, it's a matter of what horrible thing would happen to Dr. Shirley, not if something bad would happen.

Verdict (?): Weakly recommend