Movie review: Green Book

Civil rights dramedy Green Book is suddenly looking like an Oscar frontrunner, after most recently being crowned best film by the Producers Guild of America.

But its road to Oscar glory has been a bumpy one.

Viggo Mortensen put his foot in it by uttering the N-word during a panel discussion - a faux pas of epic proportions, considering the film's subject matter and the fact that his African-American co-star Mahershala Ali was also present.

Then the writer of Green Book - the son of real-life protagonist Tony Lip - got burned by his 9/11 anti-Muslim tweets (Ali is a practising Muslim), and director Peter Farrelly was, well, exposed for his on-set penis-flashing behaviour early in his career.

Apologies were made by all three men, driving forces of the movie, but the only person who emerged unscathed is Ali, undoubtedly the best thing about Green Book.

He won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Moonlight just two years ago, but it's never too early to give him another trophy for his profound, nuanced and heartbreaking turn as the uber-cultured Don Shirley, who craves acceptance but finds it neither with the blacks nor the whites.

Everything Ali does, whether pounding on the piano or wordlessly surveying the situation and people around him, is gold.

Disappearing behind the pasty flesh, bulging belly, chain-smoking and mafioso accent, Mortensen isn't too shabby either. Tony goes from racist thug to woke ally, but is still less interesting as a character study.

However problematic Green Book may be off-screen, you will end up being so engrossed in the unfolding story and so invested in the unlikely buddies who eventually arrive at common ground that all the noise gets drowned out.

Humour arises out of their differences (involving love letters and Kentucky Fried Chicken), the lighter moments balanced perfectly with the darker tones when the pair are confronted with outrageous examples of racism and real physical danger once they hit the Southern states.

You will be floored by the blatant double standards perpetrated, especially when you realise these '60s-era injustices - and worse - are far from merely fictional.

Green Book does wield enough "courage to change people's hearts", as one character puts it.

The final destination may feel a tad too precious, but embarking on this inspirational journey is still well worth it.

RATING: 4 stars

MOVIE: Green Book

STARRING: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini

DIRECTOR: Peter Farrelly

THE SKINNY: When Tony Lip (Mortensen), a bouncer from an Italian-American neighbourhood in the Bronx, is hired to drive a world-class black pianist, Dr Don Shirley (Ali), on a two-month concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on "The Green Book" to guide them to the few establishments that were then safe for African-Americans.

RATING: PG13