Review of Green Book (2018) by Viniciusbrito — 04 Jan 2019

"You never win with violence, Tony, you only win when you maintain your dignity. DIGNITY ALWAYS PREVAILS.".

"Yes, I live in a castle, Tony. Alone!".

"So if i'm not black enough, and if i'm not white enough, and if i'm not man enough, then tell me Tony, what am i?!".

"The world is full of lonely people afraid to make the first move.".

Based on the true story of Don Shirley and Tony Lip. Tony Lip looking for a job, ends up meeting "Doc." Shirley, piano musician, and the job that he offers to Tony is to be his driver and assistant while making a tour in the deep south in United States. In a time that racism was literally everywhere in the worst way as possible they gonna go through a lot of struggle and also face a big self learning with eachother. Directed by Peter Farrellt and written by Peter Farrelly, Nick Vallelonga and Brian Currie.

The story is based in real facts, and it is really interesting how they make us know the characters, in a lot of moments, without dialogue, just how they are, or what attitudes they got into some situations, in simple things, like throwing two cups away for a specific reason, or drinking and starring at people talking and having fun, it's not necessary to the characters to verbally say something, you get a lot just by watching them. I giant thing about this movie is the dialogues, the dialogues in this film are outstanding, those who wrote this deserve some awards, the dialogues in here go really deep, they do make you have a reflection about many different things and in many different layers, it does teach a lot with different and smart conversations.

I like that this movie give different layers for it's story, it isn't a story where they approach racism, just saying that white people do bad things, there is this, yes, and it is important, there are really shocking moments where they approach this, showing how ugly racism is, but in this story they show also that, there are good white people, so as there bad black people, this movie isn't trying to make your thoughs agains one or other, they show nice black people in bar, so as bad trying to steal, so as they show a bad white cop, so as one that just wanted to help them, so I think that this movie is trying to unite, wich is really important.

The relationship between them are really nice, that makes the movie, you can got different layers from both of them, not just personally, but also in a society form, preconception, solitude, fear, there are so many different themes that this story reaches, and I think that it was all very satisfactory, there is a lot in here.

The journey of the character Tony, is really nice, they first show that he is a racist, but a subtle one, that doesn't make anything better, so with time, with his time with Shirley, learning a lot with him, having him helping with letters, I think that he kind of lost that, showing that with conversation you can solve things a lot of times, at the end there is a really moment of hope, wich worked for me.

The film may have some continuity problems, some sequences felt lacked in giving the results of something that was happening right before, it felt like the sequence got broken.

For this movie to work, the both main characters would have to play a great job, their chemystri would have to be really good, and in fact, it is outstanding as well. Viggo Mortensen is amazing in here, first his accent that he keeps perfectly during the whole course of the film, it is not just funny but also categorical, his character is very imposing, strong, you totally believe in him beeing able to fix possible problems while a trip, he is definely a guy that you would like to have around, he does that character more like not caring for many things, more swinish. Mahershala Ali is exatcly the contrary, and he is damn perfect, he is fine, speaks like a gentle, have really careful choice of words, and have a posture of a king, his composure and wisdom are really interesting, he does have some lines that are really deep, and I think that he could give that depth in the way he spoke, you truly believe in those words, like he knows what he is talking about, another really great thing about his work, that he could made see the sadness in some moments, it wasn't like he just talked about it a few times, you could see in the way that he looked to the others, fantastic job. Another casting that I found really fun, is the members of the Tony Family, they actually got the real people from his family to put in the movie, that was nice. Linda Cardellini is also in here, she is at least functional, nothing very challenging, but she was good.

Green book is a amazing film, it does show the grown of a relationship, as a both people becoming good friends, as a individual point of view as well, very clear how they grown with eachother, and also as a society, talking about racism and loneliness with great dialogues, funny and dramatic moments and awesome lines.