Green Book (Peter Farrelly, 2018): USA

Review by Yuan Luo. Viewed at the AFI Fest 2018.

A comedy with a black character and a reaction to racial issues is a common type in Hollywood comedy movies. This is a film that can easily  make people laugh and have a warm effect, it can mention about ethnic issues, which is the best realm that such movies can achieve. Personally, in this genre of movie, which can bring me the above-mentioned high-quality movie, and the last time, it may be traced back to the 2016’s <Hidden Figures>. The whole movie took a road trip and took the audience to a wonderful journey in one go. It not only combines the dual effects of joy and touching, but also fills the story full and solid, fills the details just right, and the characters are stereoscopically credible. It can be described as a full-scale work.

The film was adapted from real people, and the whole story began in New York in 1962, when the United States was in the period of the African American civil rights movement. One of the protagonists of the film, the Italian-American Tony, got a job as a driver when he was frustrated and nowhere to work to earn money to support his family. The object of his driving service was an African-American black jazz piano. Home Dr. Don Shirley. This is undoubtedly unacceptable to Tony, who is rigid, arrogant, and somewhat resistant to blacks. But with the persuasion of the parties, Tony eventually took over the job with a good salary. On the way to the Dr. Shirley’s way down the piano concert, two people with different characters and different backgrounds developed a full-scale “competition”. From the initial mutual exclusion, the two gradually became infected and influenced each other, and eventually became good friends.

The film <Green Book> is a very typical road film. The two characters drove south from New York and passed through many states in the south of the United States – which undoubtedly provided a unique platform for the development of the story. In the 1960s United States, the black-right civil rights movement of African-Americans was on fire, and the cities of the southern United States were the hinterland of the movement. As the geographical position goes to the south, people are more and more excluded from blacks, so the treatment of black people is becoming more and more unfair. The two protagonists in the movie are all the way south, witnessing all of this: Dr. Shirley can live in high-end hotels from the beginning, not allowed to use “white toilets” in Kentucky, Georgia does not allow suits And then to Alabama not allowed to dine with whites. Under the coat of this road film, what is actually told is a human collision, and it is also a self-discovery and self-awareness of the protagonist. The reason for this is that the first thing to do is that the movie is quite interesting. Among the two protagonists, the white man is the person who provides the service. He is vulgar and has a low level of education. On the contrary, the black man is the one who enjoys the service. He is elegant and everything is civilized.

The details of the film are very good. The screenwriter not only designs plots such as buying green lucky stones, throwing fried chicken bones to increase the contradiction between the protagonists, but also promote the development of the plot; also designed a lot of details to plump people. Take the beginning of the movie as an example. The director threw away the cup used by the black maintenance worker and the tirelessness of his ivory art. It made it clear that Tony was a vulgar and black-rejected person.

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Published:
11.26.18 / 9pm
Category:
AFI Filmfest 2018, Films