Odd couple makes ‘Green Book’ an all-around crowd pleaser
Farrelly, Mortensen, Ali a winning team
The title of “Green Book” derives from a period when African-Americans often traveled at their own risk, especially in the Jim Crow South. Unwelcome in many restaurants, hotels and other public establishments, they even faced death in “sundown” towns, where they were warned to get out before evening, or else.
In response, a postal employee named Victor Hugo Green created a guide designed to “give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trips more enjoyable.” The Green Book was published for more than 30 years, finally ceasing publication in the late 1960s.
The pain, peril and murderous racism that made the Green Book a necessity of black life seems like unlikely fodder for a crowd-pleaser that plays like gangbusters. But “Green Book,” a spirited amalgam of buddy comedy, road movie, fish-out-of-water fable and accessible social history, is just that cinematic unicorn.
As an inspiring and thoroughly entertaining chapter drawn from all-too-real life, it mixes authenticity and Hollywood schmaltz with ease that feels both relaxed and judiciously calibrated. Most winningly, “Green Book” puts two of the finest screen actors working today in a sexy turquoise Cadillac, letting them loose on a funny, swiftly-moving chamber piece bursting with heart, art and soul.
The actors in question are Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, who prove to be a superbly balanced team. Mortensen plays Tony “Lip” Vallelonga, a Bronx bouncer who in 1962 is making his living at a New York nightclub and trying to avoid working as muscle for the local mob. Eventually, he answers a call from a Manhattan musician looking for a driver and shows up at his would-be employer’s Carnegie Hall address ready to take anything that pays.
What he finds is a man named Don Shirley (Ali), a supremely elegant pianist and composer who greets Tony draped in regal robes, then conducts the interview from what looks like an ancient Egyptian throne. Shirley, a favorite of Park Avenue and other well-heeled precincts, has booked some dates throughout the South in a tour that will end around Christmas. Although his distinctive brand of bespoke, classically infused jazz is popular with white audiences, he’s not taking any chances: He hires Tony to act both as chauffeur and protector should any difficulties, embarrassments or less-than-enjoyable circumstances arise.
The ensuing journey unfolds much as the audience might expect: The slovenly, tough-talkin’ Tony and the quiet, impeccably mannered “Dr. Shirley” almost immediately begin to bicker about everything from the music Tony listens to in the car to the cigarettes he smokes between his incessant chatter. But “Green Book,” which was co-written by Vallelonga’s son Nick, turns out to be much more than “The Odd Couple” meets “Driving Miss Daisy. ”can find little if any purchase.
Director Peter Farrelly, a Rhode Islander best known for directing such comedies as “Dumb and Dumber” and “There’s Something About Mary” with his brother Bobby, has never been known as subtle, or for caring much about what his movies looked like. But “Green Book” is an exceptionally pleasant experience, both visually and aurally, photographed in rich period hues by Sean Porter and drenched in gorgeous music by both Shirley and composer Kris Bowers.
Four stars. Rated PG-13. Contains mature thematic elements, strong language, including racial epithets, smoking, some violence and suggestive material. 130 minutes.