By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
“The Green Book” is the fascinating, true story of an unlikely friendship that begins with Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), an elegant, educated Jamaican-American classical pianist who lived in an apartment above Manhattan’s Carnegie Hall.
In 1962 when his record company sends him on a concert tour of the Deep South, Dr. Shirley hires a gruff, gluttonous, street-wise bouncer from the Copacabana nightclub to be his driver/road manager.
Known as “Tony Lip” (Viggo Mortensen) because his real name of Vallelonga was difficult to pronounce, Tony is an admittedly racist Italian. Married to Dolores (Linda Cardinelli), they live in the Bronx with their two kids and extended family. Even though this job will take him away for two months, it’s a good payday — and he’ll be home for Christmas.
So chain-smoking Tony hits the road in a turquoise Cadillac with starchy, stoic Dr. Shirley. Along the way, they discover much about one another, overcoming their personal differences while facing the inevitable humiliations and indignities of racial prejudice.
After many years of collaborating with his brother Bobby on grossed-out comedies (“Dumb and Dumber” franchise, “Something About Mary”), this is Peter Farrelly’s first attempt at directing solo, and he does a dandy job, working from an astute, character-driven script by Nick Vallelonga (Tony’s son) and Brian Hayes Currie that ignites the honest chemistry between Mortensen and Ali.
The title refers to Victor Hugo Green’s “The Negro Motorist’s Green Book,” published annually from 1936-1966 to inform black travelers where they could safely eat and stay overnight.
Kudos to cinematographer Sean Porter and production designer Tim Galvin for authenticating the bleak intolerance of the Jim Crow era — and to Kris Bowers, who composed the score and rerecorded Shirley’s arrangements for the soundtrack.
FYI: Recognized as a child prodigy, Donald Shirley grew up in Pensacola, Florida. Although he was known as Dr. Shirley, his degrees were honorary, recognizing his combination of classical, jazz and pop music.
Although comparisons with “Driving Miss Daisy” are inevitable, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Green Book” is an inspiring, uplifting 8. It’s heartfelt drama.
“A Private War” is about Marie Colvin (Rosamund Pike), a fearless British journalist who put her life on the line to chronicle the horrors of war. She often said that war reporting wasn’t about armaments or troops; it was about the innocent civilians whose lives were being destroyed:
“Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction and death — and trying to bear witness, even it if means taking risks.”
Colvin grew up in Oyster Bay, Long Island. After graduating from Yale, she landed a job with United Press International, rising to Paris bureau chief. In 1986, she became the Middle East correspondent for London’s Sunday Times, landing exclusive interviews with Libya’s Moammar Khadafy and Yasser Arafat.
In 1999 in East Timor, Colvin was barricaded with refugees in a U.N. compound surrounded by the Indonesian army. While other journalists fled, she dispatched reports. Eventually, the government relented and evacuated the refugees. Colvin was credited with saving some 1,500 lives.
Known as a gregarious, hard-drinking, chain-smoker, Colvin loved wearing expensive La Perla lingerie beneath her combat-khakis. After she lost an eye in a grenade blast with the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, she donned the jaunty black eyepatch that became her trademark.
Married and divorced three times — twice to British journalist Patrick Bishop and once to Bolivian correspondent Juan Carlos Gumucio — Colvin, who suffered from PTSD, died at age 56 in 2012 in Homs, Syria, while reporting about Bashar al-Assad’s mass bombing of civilians.
Rosamund Pike not only replicates Colvin’s distinctly husky-voice but also her gestures, urgency and intensity, ably supported by Jamie Dornan and Stanley Tucci.
Screenwriter Arash Amel has formulaically adapted Marie Brenner’s Vanity Fair profile, while director Matthew Heineman uses ghastly flashbacks to reveal the authentic essence of Marie’s story.
On the Granger Gauge, “A Private War” is a timely 7. CNN/PBS anchor Christiana Amanpour likens Colvin’s strong convictions to those of recently assassinated Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch” opened before Thanksgiving, but I refuse to pre-empt one holiday for another. Besides, it’s an absolutely unnecessary remake of a perfectly acceptable Christmas classic.
“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” was an instant best-seller. Chuck Jones filmed it as an animated TV special, related with suitable intensity by Boris Karloff. Ron Howard then morphed it into live-action with Jim Carrey as the mean-spirited misanthrope as Anthony Hopkins slyly tells the story.
Now, Benedict Cumberbatch voices the titular role of the grumpy, green killjoy, living atop Mount Crumpet, who hates Christmas so much that he’s determined to ruin the holiday for everyone else.
Dressed up as Santa, using his beleaguered dog Max as a reindeer until a real reindeer named Fred appears, the Grinch surreptitiously steals decorations and gifts from the Whos down in Whoville — until he encounters warmhearted Cindy-Lou Who (voiced by Cameron Seely).
While screenwriters Michael LeSieur and Tommy Swerdlow have softened the Grinch’s character, adding a Dickensian orphanage background to explain his distaste for Christmas cheer, their main contribution seems to be a few distinctly Dr. Seussian rhyming couplets for narrator Pharrell Williams, augmented by Tyler the Creator’s hip-hop spiced soundtrack.
Illumination Entertainment, best known for creating the Minions in the “Despicable Me” franchise, does the crisp, visually alluring CGI animation.
Kudos to Angela Lansbury, Kenan Thompson and Rashida Jones for adding far-too-brief vocal enhancement, as everyone readies for the inevitable transfer to a Universal Studio theme park.
On the Granger Gauge, “Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch” pilfers an all-too-familiar 5. If you’ve seen the original, don’t bother with the remake.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
