The last few years I have attempted to see all the Best Picture nominations for the Oscars. This led to very good film watching experiences in the last two years. Manchester by the Sea (2016), Moonlight (2016), The Shape of Water (2017), Get Out (2017) and Ladybird (2017) were some of my favourites from the last two years and were all completely deserving of their nominations. However, as soon as the nominees were announced for this year’s Best Picture, I was totally uninspired to try and watch them all. BlacKkKlansman (2018) was a good film, but not in the class of the prior years. Black Panther (2018) has caused a stir with its nomination (I haven't actually seen it myself) with many people saying it isn't even the best superhero film of last year with Avengers: Infinity War (2018) also being released. I have not heard the greatest things about Vice (2018) and the fact that Bohemian Rhapsody is nominated for Best Picture is pretty laughable in my opinion, even if Rami Malek is fully deserving of his nomination for Best Actor. I was hoping that Green Book (2018) would lift my spirits and make me think differently about this year’s Oscars. Unfortunately, this was not the case. This is not to say that it is at all a bad film, in fact I did really enjoy it. But is it Best Picture worthy? Not in my eyes. The film is based on the true story of Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) and Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali). Tony Lip is a working-class New Yorker, working as a bouncer at the Copacabana and doing odd jobs on the side to support his family. Dr. Shirley is a world renowned, accomplished musician who is about to embark on a tour of the deep south. He hires Tony as his driver as he has heard that he has a certain skill when dealing with trouble, and with Dr. Shirley being a black man touring in the deep south of 1960s America, he is expecting trouble. The film then follows these two men as they get a look into each other’s worlds, overcome trials and tribulations and eventually become very good friends because of the experience.
First thing to say about this film is that I can totally see why, now having seen it, that it has been nominated for Best Picture. It is a very sentimental and warm-hearted period piece, which the academy loves, with a message of racial integration and acceptance which they have been pushing for these last two years. And I have nothing wrong with any of this. I am all for warm hearted films which make you smile, and this one did just that with me. And I am fully on board with the message of the film which I think is important and needed. But the film is very much play by numbers, no risk film and even its message is delivered in a very obvious and cliché way. The ending of the film, though uplifting and a nice ending, is almost sickeningly sweet and ties everything u almost far to nicely given the message the film wants to get across. There are also moments of the film which attempt to build up the racial conflict in the film but are instantly either forgotten or become unimportant. One moment of this comes near the beginning of the film where two black workmen are helping at Tony's home and are given water by his wife Dolores (Linda Cardellini). Tony is shown racially abusing these men with his family and then puts the two glasses the men drank from in the bin. However, throughout the rest of the film Tony is not shown to have these overtly racist views and ideals again. He is shown to be naive and relate racist stereotypes to Dr. Shirley, but these are not overtly racist moments and instead just show Tony's narrow world view. The family's racism is also forgotten at the end of the film where they openly invite Dr. Shirley to eat with them with no kind of fanfare or questioning. Again, I would like to say that the message of the film is an important one, but the film fails to really address the problem in a subtle way, instead being extremely overt and often not very effectively.
This film, like Bohemian Rhapsody, is not worth it's Best Picture Nomination but you would be mad if you didn’t think it was worth its best actor nominations for both Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen. Ali has been nominated for Best Actor in a supporting role and I think it is warranted. He puts in a performance that is engaging and entertaining and he captures this character brilliantly. He gets across the characters stoicism and intelligence, coming across at the start of the film as a no nonsense, get the job done kind of character. But Ali is very good as the film goes on at portraying the deeper lying emotion of the character and has some very good moments where this emotion comes to the fore. He also is good at showing the growth of the character, from this stoic man to becoming more laid back and living a little. I think the performance could be debated whether it is worthy of nomination, but I personally think it is of merit. What is not up for debate is Viggo Mortenesen's nomination. This performance is superb, thoroughly entertaining and completely sucks you in. It is very rare these days for a performance to fully immerse me an make me forget the actor playing the character, but there were several times during this film where this was the case. Mortensen is fully in to the character. His accent is impeccable (at least to my ears) and the way he portrays this man who is not afraid to go above the law to get things done, but whist keeping to his own moral code is endlessly entertaining. His development of the character is also fantastic as we see him going from this naive man to someone who fully sympathises with Dr. Shirley and become close to him. You can really sense a closeness and bond between the two characters, and I think if it was not for these two performances the film would be so much weaker.
Green Book is an enjoyable and heart-warming film that has two fantastic performances within it. It is very entertaining, and I never found myself bored while watching it. The message behind the film is one that is important and although I think it is a bit heavy handed in getting it across, it still manages to do so without ever getting it wrong or doing it an injustice. This films direction is very by the numbers and is nothing to write home about, but it does its job and isn't ever weak or straight up bad. However, is its Best Picture worthy? No. It isn't close to be the best film of the year. But I still fully recommend it because it is very entertaining and charming and has two absolutely superb performances that are more than worth the price of a ticket. I don't expect this film to win many awards at the Oscars this year, but if Viggo doesn't win Best Actor I may just riot.