“Green Book,” released on Nov. 21, was nominated for 75 awards and won a total of 37 of those nominations. At this year’s Golden Globes, “Green Book” was nominated for five different awards, winning three of those nominations. This included Best Motion Picture-Musical or Comedy and Best Screenplay-Motion Picture.

The director of “Green Book,” Peter Farrelly, is also the writer of the more popular comedy, “Dumb and Dumber.” Although Farrelly usually sticks to writing comedies with slightly offensive humor, “Green Book” is far from that normality of Farrelly. 

The main character is Tony Lip, portrayed by Viggo Mortensen. He is a working-class Italian-American bouncer who comes across a job to be a driver for Dr. Don Shirley, an African American Pianist played by Mahershala Ali. Lip and Shirley are the two most focused characters, as the film follows their friendship and how it grows. These two, at the beginning, are unlikely to become good friends who understand each other. The dangerous journey they take as Shirley tours through the south in the ’60s brings Lip to a realization of the difficulties that Shirley encounters as an African American Man.

The south in the 1960s was a dangerous place for African Americans, while they were still battling discrimination and the Civil Rights Movement was in full effect. “The Negro Motorist Green Book” in the 1960s was a guide to where African Americans were to be safe in the south, including motels and restaurants, during the Jim Crow Era. 

It was written by a collection of experiences by African Americans to keep them safe while traveling in the south. Lip was introduced to this when he became Shirley’s driver and realized the potential danger they were in. Racism was a big concept in this film, but the friendship of Lip and Shirley and how it developed was certainly more focused on. However, this can tie to the concept of racism because Lip becomes angered about the racism Shirley deals with. 

This unexpected matching of Lip and Shirley does pave a path for a heartfelt feeling between the two and how their relationship develops. The struggles of the two did cause a sense of anger because of the blatant racism and ignorance that the south in the ’60s obtained. With both love (between Lip and Shirley) and hate (between the south and African Americans) the film certainly provides a variety of emotions.

With the emotional part covered through dialogue, Farrelly does a good job executing formal techniques in film to make the scenes go from serious to fun and uplifting. With the change in lighting and diegetic sound, he achieves changing the emotional appeal in each scene. This happens in one particularly serious scene, where it is raining, and the diegetic sound of rain adds to the emotional seriousness. 

I would recommend this film to anyone and everyone, but especially to those who are particularly interested in the Civil Rights movement, a change in heart for the better, or even just to see a well-developed friendship. It has many different morals and progressions throughout the film and is enjoyable to an immense audience.