{"id":3699,"date":"2016-03-10T02:12:03","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T20:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3699"},"modified":"2016-03-10T02:12:03","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T20:42:03","slug":"green-book-review-a-road-trip-film-low-on-racial-drama-high-on-buddy-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3699","title":{"rendered":"Green Book Review: A Road Trip Film Low on Racial Drama, High on Buddy Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

O<\/span><\/p><\/div>

ver the last few years, Mahershala Ali has elevated just about anything he\u2019s starred in. Even before he received universal acclaim for his award-winning turn in <\/span>Moonlight<\/span><\/i><\/a>, Ali had already registered his quiet gentleness in <\/span>The Curious Case of Benjamin Button<\/span><\/i> and Netflix\u2019s <\/span>House of Cards<\/span><\/i><\/a>. <\/span>\n\nReturning to a starring role after two years, it\u2019s this very charm that Ali brings forth in Peter Farrelly\u2019s <\/span>Green Book<\/span><\/i> \u2013 making the road-trip film sing at a pitch it otherwise wasn\u2019t equipped to. Inspired from a true story, <\/span>Green Book <\/span><\/i>revolves around the unlikely friendship between Don Shirley (Ali), a <\/span>multilingual<\/span><\/a> African-American pianist and Tony \u201cLip\u201d Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen), a racist NY bouncer hired to drive him for a concert tour through unfriendly route.<\/span>\n\nSet in 1962 America, the film boasts of an intolerant and divisive climate that on first glance might not seem very different from the one we live in right now. It was a time when African-Americans travelled in the Jim Crow South at their own <\/span>risk<\/span><\/a>, facing hostility (and even death) at many public establishments. Naturally, the film\u2019s title is derived from the handbook that was designed to <\/span>\u201cgive the Negro traveller information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments, and to make his trips more enjoyable.\u201d An indispensable travel-guide at the time, the Green Book listed friendly and safe places for African-Americans to stay and <\/span>eat<\/span><\/a>, besides offering them tips on how to avoid trouble.<\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s admirable how Farrelly \u2013 best known for making <\/span>exaggerated<\/span><\/a>, dudebro comedies like <\/span>Dumb and Dumber <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>There\u2019s Something About Mary<\/span><\/i> \u2013 mines this grim premise of American bigotry to extract a crowd-pleasing, funny, and warm albeit predictable buddy comedy. It helps that Mortensen, cast in a rare comic role, is in top form, eliciting laughs by the minute as the ill-mannered gluttonous buffoon, resistant to \u2013 and awed by \u2013 the elegance of a black man. Together, Ali and Mortensen, bring to screen an unforgettable chemistry that\u2019s poignant, rousing, and which single-handedly enlivens the broad strokes of the film\u2019s script.<\/span>\n\nYet, for a film that underscores the ability of American <\/span>racism<\/span><\/a> to permeate the length and breadth of public consciousness, <\/span>Green Book<\/span><\/i> takes an inexplicable viewpoint of racism. Much of the film\u2019s commentary on racism is designed in the past tense and even the condemnation comes with a straightforward solution. As if implying, that racism is one of those problems that once existed and is now eradicated. Even Tony\u2019s bigotry, is shrouded in layers of sympathy \u2013 the kind displayed by well-meaning, but eventually racist, friends and family. It\u2019s this superficial self-congratulatory <\/span>cliched<\/span><\/a> tone that threatens to undo the bickering and bonding of the odd-couple pairing for much of the film\u2019s two-hour runtime.<\/span>\n\n

An indispensable travel-guide at the time, the Green Book listed friendly and safe places for African-Americans to stay and eat, besides offering them tips on how to avoid trouble.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nBut <\/span>Green Book<\/span><\/i> is also, one of those crowd-pleasers that hinges on the ability of its leads to overwrite its source material. Together, Mortensen and Ali make it near impossible for anyone to take their eyes off them as they grow, learn, and unlearn, with each other. These two actors and their chemistry create a <\/span>mini-movie<\/span><\/a> inside a movie, that is at once, deeply satisfying and thoroughly entertaining.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Green Book takes a muddled viewpoint of racism. But together, Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen bring to screen an unforgettable chemistry that\u2019s poignant, rousing, and which single-handedly enlivens the broad strokes of the film\u2019s script.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":3700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[6942,5464,332,6943,542,6944,3738,6945,6946,1853,6947,6948,6949,1341,6950,343,6951,6952,2481,6953],"class_list":["post-3699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-african-americans","tag-bigotry","tag-black","tag-buddy-comedy","tag-comedy","tag-deep-south","tag-drama","tag-green-book","tag-guidebook","tag-house-of-cards","tag-jim-crow","tag-mahershala-ali","tag-negro","tag-netflix","tag-prejudice","tag-racism","tag-road-trip","tag-separate-but-equal","tag-travel","tag-viggo-mortensen"],"yoast_head":"\nGreen Book Review: A Road Trip Film Low on Racial Drama, High on Buddy Comedy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Green Book takes a muddled viewpoint of racism. 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