Review of Green Book (2018) by Shpostal — 23 Nov 2018

"Green Book" is a fairly true story of a gifted concert pianist and his hired Italian driver making a swing through the Deep South in 1962 at the height of Jim Crow before the civil rights battles really started.

The actual "green books" were indeed real, and were handed out at gas stations or other locations to help African Americans find locations to eat, sleep and otherwise be entertained without being harassed by the ignoramus separatist white racist idiots especially in the South.

Viggo Mortenson plays a Bronx semi-wise guy Italian who needs a few months employment as his club where he is employed as a bouncer, the famous Copacabana is undergoing renovations, and lands a job as a driver for Dr.

Don Shirley, brilliantly played by Mahershala Ali. Both men are absolutely genius in their respective roles, as Shirley, a gifted and very erudite and intelligent concert pianist play off each other during this two month tour of the Deep South.

It's a shock to the system of the time with a white man driving the affluent and privileged African American around between gigs, and the film carefully examines the strife and attitudes of the day and age without getting into some of the truly horrendous events that also happened.

The film doesn't really cover a lot of new ground here, and has its similarities with "Hidden Figures", the blockbuster from a few years ago without being a derivative. Without being a spoiler, we are witnessing the gradual closing of the gap of understanding the world as both men know it, including Dr.

Shirley's own unawareness of the awful poverty he witnesses during the trip of his fellow African Americans, and learns that Tony, his driver lives in very modest circumstances of his own in the Bronx.

This is a movie where we don't really see a cataclysmic event, but rather the common behaviors of a Jim Crow south, where patrons in cities like Memphis and Birmingham want to be seen as "cultured" and have no problem with Shirley performing at their private swanky parties, but that tolerance stops obviously the second the show's over.

"Green Book" serves a duel purpose: the enormous racial divide, class divisions and the courage it took for more open minded people of all races to begin to stand up and unite against the profound hate that sadly still exists today, but was a genuine threat to life and limb back then.

It's a great movie and highly recommended.