‘GREEN BOOK’

PG-13 2:10

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, fishout-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.

Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini and more (contains mature thematic elements, strong language, including racial epithets, smoking, some violence and suggestive material). — Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post