Green Book (2018)

I don't really like jazz. So I had no idea until watching "Green Book" who was Don Shirley. And until the end of the movie I had no clue that what I'm seeing is also a real story... Fortunately, because the perspective of a biopic with a hint of musical would've kept me away. Like that, until the end titles I just felt I'm seeing a "road movie". A good one.

Tony "Lip" Vallelonga is an Italian guy working as a bouncer in the New York clubs during the '60s. Since feeding the family + paying the rent aren't really possible to ignore when he's forced to take a vacation while the club is renovated, Tony accepts a temporary job offer as a driver for Dr. Shirley. A black piano player, who studied at the Leningrad conservatory, and who's planning a tour of the southern states right during the segregation times. And like that we're getting to our "road movie" with a pretty odd pair both as interaction between them, as well as with the areas they're passing by: a highly educated black guy with two PhDs having a white thug as his limo driver.

I wouldn't really get into the discrimination part and the rest of social drama, because generally I avoid discussing real life issues on the blog, but it's obvious that this is the central topic of the movie, starting with the title = the green book of the places where the colored population was accepted in the south of the U.S. during that time - o touristic brochure for a "safe trip". Let's just say that the problem of the racism is handled with a fine touch, sometimes with humor, and I'd say in a much more decent and efficient manner as the message it sends than in other movies. Besides that, we have the road movie part, which has the feeling of a film by Alexander Payne - "Sideways", "Descendants", "Nebraska", take a pick (I know that not all of these are "road movies", but if you've seen them, you should know what I mean). It doesn't have the same charm, or the same intensity - where you feel effectively the place in the script - possibly also because the whole perspective is more negative towards the South US here, but we're close to Payne's style anyway. In the end you have pretty much the same feeling of a calm after the storm, no matter of where that happens and its context, everything somehow finds its place ;)

Rating: 4 out of 5