Movie Review: Green Book

The movie has attracted some flak in the media, but my wife and I enjoyed it.

In a way it reminded me of movies like "Pretty Baby Woman [Freudian slip]"--the standard plot about people with different personalities who change each other, especially the one where with the romantic stereotypes of the spontaneous, earthy, joi de vivre type gets the uptight person to seize the day

The movie does that plot well.  It's relieved from being too corny because in this movie the black character is the WASP buttoned up one and the white character is his opposite.  To me that dynamic is more important to the movie than the racial issues--the prejudices of the 1960's and the segregation in the South--though it's the racial aspects which seem to attract media attention.

And the acting is great--we've liked Mortensen from past performances, ever since Witness and then LOR.  Despite the 50 pounds he may have added for the role, and the weight he may have added doing all the eating in the script, he still comes across as capable and intelligent.  And the only thing wrong with Ali is I can't spell his last name.

It hasn't been doing well at the box office, but it just picked up five Golden Globe nominations for the movie and its actors.