About Green Book (2018)

* This is my first attempt to write a movie review in English. Thank you so much, James, my dear friend, for helping me checking all the spelling and grammar mistakes. I didn't know there were so many."

It’s hard not to love Viggo Mortensen.

I told you once that the person understanding my taste the most is Youtube. Well, it’s certainly true in this case. When my bestie Youtube recommended me this movie’s trailer, I was so thankful to know that Viggo had another movie and it looked promising. Maybe this time, he’ll get that Oscar.

My first thought about Green Book’s trailer was as obvious as its plot: this movie is Driving Miss Daisy in reverse. It’s hard to blame me and everyone for thinking this movie is an update for the 1989 Oscar winner. They both have brilliant actors in the lead roles; the plot is a heart-warming, unpredictable friendship of two individuals having nothing in common; a beautiful car driving inside a racist, vulnerable America,… In the storm of political correctness, Green Book has a typical, undeniable tone of Oscar bait. And thank for the fucking hell, they do not suck.

Is Green Book another Driving Miss Daisy? Yes, it is and no, it isn’t. For me, it must be a stupid lie if I tell you this movie is unique, different and completely different from Driving Miss Daisy. Come on, they have the same plot. So it’s not a kind hearted poor Morgan Freeman driving an old rich cranky lady anymore, now, it’s a messy, street smart, talkative, “gangster” Tony Lip driving this talented, arrogant, lonely musician Don Shirley. They didn’t like each other at first, but after suffering some time together, they started to realize how terrific the other guy was. They never said it but this friendship changed them forever. Wow, like I have never ever watched something like that before.

It’s hard not to compare Green Book to Driving Miss Daisy so I take the easy path, I keep comparing them to each other. To be fair, if there is a movie about a 14 years old ghost Latina driving a rock band with a lead singer is an alien and a drummer is a peacock, I still compare it to Driving Miss Daisy.

I remember the reason I watched Driving Miss Daisy is that this movie is always in the list of movies that didn’t deserve its Oscar. Driving Miss Daisy is getting so much hate from the public for no reason, it is a good movie. Well, it did beat Dead Poets Society and Field of Dreams (both movies are really good) for the Best Picture. But who cares? Sometimes, it doesn't have to be the best to win.  One day, after considering all the options, one guy from Academy might be so sick of those big movies with big messages, deep, cheesy moral lessons about human kind, soul, dreams or some serious stuff that took out a lot of tears, and he thought about Driving Miss Daisy. That movie may be not extraordinary but it makes him feel so good and happy. So in that fateful day, he voted for Driving Miss Daisy and thought "It's just one vote, this vote can't change the final result. I don't care, I like it most." You know the ending.

The heart of Driving Miss Daisy and Green Book is the friendship of two different people. In Green Book, the unemployed Tony Lip tried every way to have some money to support his family, so he agreed to be a driver for Dr. Shirley for two months, despite the fact he is a racist dude and Shirley is an unbelievably arrogant guy to begin with. The pair didn’t get along well when they first met but became lifetime friends in the end. Now, the story isn’t doing anything so far, the personality of the characters must be the thing that makes it interesting. The chemistry between the two leads is so sincere and genuine and it’s surprisingly funny.

Tony “Lip” Vallelonga is of Italian descent, who lives and works in the Godfather/ Goodfellas kind of world, which is a cliché stereotype situation for a blue collar Italian guy in this era. He’s street smart (it’s my subtle way to say that he didn’t sit in school enough to write a decent letter to his wife), quite devious and aggressive, good at threatening, eating chicken fried, smoking and talking people into doing his way. Being a messy, loud mouth, impolite, small thief and saying hurtful things sometimes, Tony is a caring, loving father and husband. And he’s white.

On the other hand, Don Shirley is a weird black dude. He’s not in any stereotype of black people, maybe he’s trying his best not to be recognized this way. Dr. Shirley is a well-educated, bad dresser at home, genius, not talk-a-lot pianist who is so talented that he has his own band in his name, played for the President twice and can call Robert Kennedy to bail him out of jail. In spite of being an arrogant jerk who’s so full of himself and loves to give orders, Dr. Shirley is a brave, prideful, lonely guy who’s trying in his own to change how Americans look at black people.

Both main characters in Green Books are so much more colorful, interesting and multi-dimensional than the main characters in Driving Miss Daisy. I remembered that the Morgan Freeman character is a literate man who is so kind, so nice and devoted while Miss Daisy herself is an old bag who turns out to be not racist and not so bad at all. That’s it. Those characters are good on their own and suitable for the movie but I prefer the Green Book’s characters, their personalities are quite stronger, therefore, more feeling impact.

The contacting of contrasting personalities make a beautiful friendship. While the story in Driving Miss Daisy is simple, delicate and quite light and bright, the story in Green Book is more dramatic with punches, guns and strong language. But there are still some reasonable comedy parts where the pair are bonding that make the movie not so heavy and more enjoyable.

Some people might say the comedy parts make people not focus on the main issue: the racism. I beg to differ. Based on the name of the movie, you can know the real message the movie wanted to tell. You see, Driving Miss Daisy is just about driving Miss Daisy, a story about a strange friendship with some highlights about racism. Green Book is, quoted in wikipedia “a guide for black travelers to find motels, restaurants, and filling stations that would serve blacks”. This has been an anti-racism movie from the start, and comes along with a memorable friendship of two guys from two different worlds.

The racism is depicted with honesty in the movie. Being a person who has never been outside my country, I haven’t had a chance to be treated differently (I hope not), I feel hurt and depressed while watching this movie. Well, in my blog, I usually avoid discussing the moral lesson of a movie, especially when it’s this clear and straightforward. I have nothing more to say about it, you’ve already heard everything I can say.

So we’re back to the thing I loved most in Green Book: the characters.

When I thought about Dr. Shirley, I think he might be the loneliest guy the whole world. You think Superman and the Doctor are the loneliest because they are the last of their kind? Well, turns out Superman has a cousin and he has a wife too. The Doctor has The War Doctor and he has a wife and maybe, a child? Dr. Shirley, who doesn’t seem to be close to his family, is the loneliest because he doesn't know who he is. The line, “So if I’m not black enough, and I’m not white enough, and I’m not man enough, then tell me Tony, who am I?” that Mahershala Ali delivered so brilliantly make me tearing up a little bit. All his loneliness, vulnerability, lost and fear, is captured in this particular line and it makes the whole character become so relatable and real. After all the upper-class behaviors, the bitch face, the music talent, the ridiculous-not-know-how-to-eat-a-fried chicken, he is just a lonely soul and the worst is deep down he always knows he doesn’t belong to anywhere, he’s on his own.

While Mahershala Ali’s performance proves that he is an amazing actor and deserved his Oscar, I believe this kind of character is in Ali’s comfort zone, Mortensen’s character is another story. This is the guy playing Aragorn in The Lord of the Ring trilogy. After the trilogy, I thought the industry buried him as one hit wonder guy (just like Mark Hamill in Star Wars), then he came back and blew my stupid mind with Captain Fantastic (which I did write a review about). Viggo Mortensen was so good in this movie that I was upset because the Oscar went to Casey Affleck that year. But somewhere in the character of Ben Cash, I can still see an Aragorn with the quiet, smart, determined look, his calm present, his nature of a tough warrior and of course, his handsome face. In the character of Tony Lip, I see none of those things. He became a whole different person from inside and outside. He’s no longer Aragorn, he’s Tony Lip and just Tony Lip only. The looks, the voice, the personality, everything honestly surprises me, I didn’t know he could play this kind of character. I’m telling you, this guy has talent in Gary Oldman’s range.

I call Green Book a great example of a balanced movie. Well, while the plot is as old as Santa, the audiences have the great comfort of knowing where the story goes (just like when you watch a Christmas movie and know too damn sure it has a happy ending). But Green Book is not at all boring and still can bring something more to the table, so you keep watching it with a bittersweet feeling. The storyline seems quite easy to watch with a lot of humor but not overused so you still capture the main message: Racism is bad and it was super bad in the 60’s. The director knows when and how to get serious so sometimes the movie’s tone changes unexpectedly, I don’t know, maybe to remind me that I’m not watching a light road trip comedy. It’s a real drama with real people and real problems. The anti-racism message is loud and clear and it’s necessary to give the depth to the characters and the whole movie, so, sure, you felt upset and depressing. But in the end, the heart-warming friendship of Tony and Dr. Shirley is the ray of sunshine that keeps you from getting lost in desperation or melancholy.

While the whole movie has been a blessing, it still has some nice touch in small parts, which I think helps the portrait of the characters, their motivations and make the movie more wholesome. Some parts like Tony’s wife, his letters, the vagueness of Don Shirley’s sexuality, the scene when Shirley is looking at the farmers, the Italian family in the end, all of them, surrounded by classic 60’s music throughout the movie. There is no wasted scene in this brilliant movie.

In my own experiences, I usually avoid knowing the reality if the movie is based on a true story. You know what, the truth didn’t destroy my love for this movie like it destroyed The Blind Side. The thing I appreciate the most is Tony was racist and the movie didn’t sugar coat this truth to make people love his character. You can see how he changed the way he looked and acted with black people after being friends with Dr. Shirley, it proves people can change and makes the message even better and more powerful.

Anyway, Green Book is the first excellent movie I watched in 2019. It’s not light, it’s not new, it’s not surprisingly good either (I expected it was brilliant and it was), but just like Driving Miss Daisy, Green Book makes me want to smile after watching it. It felt so heart-warming, so easy and relaxing and I don’t have anything bad to say about it. I don’t know what happened, maybe the cliché happy ending got me.