It's the holiday season and the movies beckon! Let's talk a bit about an excellent film, The Green Book.
What is the Green Book, you ask? Check out the picture above.
Back in the segregated 40s', southern states published a list of hotels and restaurants for African-Americans only. Or, to put it differently, people of color traveling to the south could not stay in a hotel or eat at a restaurant of their choice.
Yeah, hard to believe! This is the land of the free? What a shameful and disgusting chapter in American history.
Anyway, this is the setting for the film. We are taken on a painful and daunting voyage to the south, back in the days of "separate but equal," as the southerners used to say.
The plot involves a master pianist, an African-American, who is so famous he has played in the White House. He purposely books gigs in the South, where he hopes to enlighten the bigoted.
For the trip, he knows he will need protection, so he hires a driver who is a man of character, tough, street-smart, but woefully uneducated and simple.
No more details, but just imagine what will happen!
Acting: Wow! Viggo Mortensen is SO fantastic as the driver. He has proven his mettle in many films. My favorite, by the way, is a western, Appaloosa, where he plays the serious and quiet lawman opposite Ed Harris.
Viggo is the perfect Italian driver/protector, whose basic sense of right and wrong are beautifully juxtaposed to a system of evil inequity.
Then there's Mahershala Ali. Known for some great acting in Moonlight, The Hunger Games, and the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, he nails the role of the distinguished, driven, brilliant pianist. Watch how he evolves from a stick figure to a full-fledged, troubled genius throughout the film.
The friendship that evolves between the two is touching and real.
Just to further pique your curiosity about the film, think of Driving Miss Daisy (with black and white roles reversed) combined with Goodfellas.
Huh? You'll find out when you see the film!
Bottom line: a MUST see.
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