Movie Review: Green Book (2018)

Another day goes by, where I am just flipping through either Netflix to binge watch a movie

or TV series, or watch cat videos on YouTube. Basically, I’m saying how quarantine can

really bore a person out. But it is our jobs to keep us entertained without the need to go

outside. And with how anything is accessible these days, you can really find a lot of things

to keep yourself occupied. As I mentioned, a good example is to watch movies either on

your streaming service or cable TV movie channel.

Personally, I find much more intriguing movies on the channels on our cable service

provider. And I just so happen to come upon half of “La, La, Land” to watch and saw that

there are several movies lined up after it. So, after grabbing some snacks and drinks I head

onto the couch, got into a comfortable position and watched what’s in store for the night.

Right after “La, La, Land”, there was a movie right after it that I was unfamiliar with. It was

entitled “Green Book” which featured two vaguely familiar actors on the movie poster. It

was scheduled to play after ten minutes so it gave me ample time to research about it. What

I found was very intriguing.

The movie’s genre is both comedy and drama, and has a particularly high rating of 8.2 on

IMDB. And as I browsed more on Time.com, Time Magazine’s official website, “Green Book”

received a lot of awards for the year 2019 including an “Academy Award for Best Picture”.

Talk about prestigious, and it’s going to be watched by me!

After doing enough research, I settled in as the commercials transitioned into playing the

film. It started with introducing both of the characters and showing how distinct they are

from each other. What I got from Tony, played by Viggo Mortensen, is that he can be a brute
as to Dr. Shirley, played by Mahershala Ali, who is more on the demure side. But then, this

will be the cause of the formation of their dynamic relationship. And as they took me on

their journey, I saw the drastic changes on how they interact. And also saw Dr. Shirley’s

predicament with racism. With that I felt different emotions all throughout the movie.

There were scenes that made me irritated, some made my heart melt and also made me

smile. And in the end, shed some light on what little I know of racism back in the day.

If I could classify this movie, I would label it as a “feel good movie” wherein you wouldn’t

really need a very comprehensive mind to understand. The message of discrimination is

always present and not really hard to notice. As seen by the experiences of Dr. Shirley,

which Tony also gets to see, despite his amazing skills with the piano to please his “white”

audience he will always still be a “black” man to them. As the doc almost repeat to Tony all

the time. To me, “feel good” doesn’t mean the theme throughout the movie should be happy

or light. My definition actually pertains to the message of the story or movie. Which I will

elaborate further on.

One other thing that made me classify this movie as “feel good” is the subtle humor and

heartwarming scenes. There is this one scene where Tony went and try to steal a jade stone

and Dr. Shirley reprimanded and demanded him to put it back. Which Tony did eventually,

but not after having a very engaging argument and throwing a mild tantrum. In short, that

was a very entertaining and iconic scene that had me in stitches.

Examples of heartwarming scenes is when I saw how the two’s relationship start to really

bloom. As I mentioned, they are two different personalities but this is what made them

closer. It started with funny banters, then the development of Tony’s protective side over
Dr. Shirley, then the warming up of Dr. Shirley to Tony and it ends with a scene of a family

dinner with both of them in it. Which shows how Don Shirley’s cold façade, all toughened

up because of experience, melted away all because of a man showing him the treatment

Shirley deserved.

Then I come into thinking, even today racism is still an issue. And I am thankful I got the

opportunity to watch this movie. It showed me how far we have helped discriminated

people get the rights they deserve. Albeit there’s still racism, it doesn’t mean that the

treatment back then during the time of Dr. Shirley has stayed the same. What I’m saying is

that somehow, they can live in better conditions. And the overall message I got is that we

should make not just people of color feel the world is with them, but everyone in this world

should feel the same.

The movie was able to show a lot of bad things but in the nicest way possible. Going back to

what I’ve said about this being a feel-good movie, it’s because of the message against

discrimination and the solution against it. Now that we live in the year of 2020, people are

freer to love who they want to and be who they desire to be. But again, there’s still

discrimination. The only people who can help fight against this, is us. Tony’s character

development of becoming less ignorant on what’s happening to people like Dr. Shirley

should really hit us in the gut that racism should stop. And it isn’t too late to do so.

Especially now, having watching it before the discrimination towards a man named George

Floyd, got me thinking how we still live with racism. It’s still a problem we can’t seem to

eradicate fully. All I have was thoughts of how someone like Tony in the Green Book movie

changed his views to even establishing a brotherly bond with Dr. Shirley. I know we can
learn from this film, whatever the color of your skin is. All lives matter, but we have to

make sure everyone is involved. Not just specific groups of people based on skin color, race,

religion, sex or way of life. With that, I give this movie a real thumbs-up, for being able to

share a story that shows timely issues that we all can take a lesson from.

Sources:

https://time.com/5527806/green-book-movie-controversy/