C- | A bigoted bodyguard accompanies a black pianist on a concert tour of the Jim Crow South. Directed by Peter Farelly Starring Viggo Mortenson and Mahershala Ali Review by Jon Kissel |
Feel-good racial brotherhood story Green Book has been showered with adulation by the Oscars, but it’s also generated its share of controversy. In this adaptation, or purported adaptation, of a true story, interested parties have gone to war over what was included and intimated, while cultural critics wonder whether one more pat reconciliation tale between a black man and a racist white man has any place in present times, a decades-old concern that’s been pitched every time a film posits that racism can be solved by proximity and friendliness. Underneath all these questions about who gets to tell whose story and the value of catering to an audience permanently receptive to easy answers lies a son who wants to pass on an interesting thing that happened to his father, and, less compellingly, a former director of raunchy comedies wanting to move into awards contending cinema. Green Book’s one of those films where the conversation around it is more interesting than the utterly average film itself.
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