As busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me.  As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, there are other experts out there.  Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy.  Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering.  In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.

TODAY’S CRITIC: Lafronda Stumn

Lafronda Stumn is a student at Madisonville Community College and intends to graduate with an Associate's degree in Associate of the Arts. She plans on earning a Bachelors Degree in Motion Picture Studies and English at Wright State University. Her favorite Directors are Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Spike Lee, and her favorite actors are Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and Halle Berry. Lafronda contacted this page looking for a place to get published and I enjoy giving people that very kind of opportunity. This is her sixth guest review for Every Movie Has a Lesson. Welcome back, Lafronda!

HER REVIEW:

Interracial friendship is a dime a dozen in Hollywood films. The last time I remember friendship between the races was The Help, with Emma Stone, Octavia Spenser, and Viola Davis. The film was a brilliant film about race in the '60s. Despite racial tensions and discrimination, there was a fair amount of racial respect and love between the lead and supporting characters.

In 2018, here comes another film set in the 60s. It takes mostly in place in the south and about interracial friendships as well. Green Book is based on a real-life company between an Italian bouncer named Tony Lipp who needs a job for a couple of months due to a brawl working at the local nightclub. He becomes a chauffeur of a renowned classical pianist named Dr. Don Shirley. Lipp accepts a job to travel down the positively charged segregated south, as Shirley is on tour with a trio of two other white artists, who rides separately in another car.  

At first, Tony doesn't want to take the job because of his racist tendencies towards black people. His wife (Linda Cardellini) is hesitant not because of racism but her husband being away for so long. After a phone call from Shirley, she agrees because they do need the money. In the beginning, they travel in the northeast in Pittsburgh, then in Ohio. Tony is surprised when Shirley doesn't listen to many R&B artists such as James Brown. Shirley then asks to take back a jade stone that he finds on the ground at a pit stop for gas and snacks.

The first stop in the south is in Louisville, Kentucky where they stay at a local motel. Shirley doesn't fit in with black people staying at the motel. Tony also saves Shirley for getting beat up from some local racists, which infuriates Lipp. The film forms begrudging respect by Tony, who admires Shirley's skills as a pianist. Shirley and Tony get to know each other on a deeper level. Tony's earlier perceptions about blacks were not only wrong but very ignorant. Shirley also helps Tony write letters to his wife more thoughtfully and romantically.

These scenes when Tony writes to his wife are at the heart of the movie. Those scenes are well written and showcase the human, more heartfelt person of Tony. Shirley is a quiet, moody guy ostracized by his brother, as the rest of his family are deceased. Tony fills a missing link of human connection that Shirley is missing performing as a pianist.

There are two scenes, however, that are very problematic. One is where Tony stops by Kentucky Fried Chicken and corrects Shirley to eat the chicken leg that Tony gives him. Shirley has never had fried chicken. It is extraordinary that an Italian would teach a black to eat something deemed a "stereotype.” A white guy teaching a black guy to eat a fried chicken leg and a breast is very offensive, and for Tony to assume that all black people eat the same things is just plain wrong.

There is another fried chicken scene when the profound and racist politician serves Shirley and his associates fried chicken to "celebrate" his performance at the Governor's mansion. There is no mention of this in concept from a well-known, influential racist. Serving fried chicken as an expectation to eat it because of his race is profoundly wrong. The filmmakers and director are white, and no co-author was black to explain to the other writer and director how to approach these scenes and have them rewritten.

Nick Vallelonga, Peter Farrelly, and Brian Hayes Currie didn't try to hire a black writer or two to discuss if their script is problematic, shape, or form. That’s not a good thing. Farrelly also directed the film, which is a whole lot different from the raunchy comedies such as Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, and There's Something About Mary. He does a competent job of directing. There needed to be a black director along the lines of Spike Lee, Steve McQueen, F. Gary Gray, George Tillman Jr., that would have given a more genuine understanding to deal with these stereotypes in a fairer and inoffensive way.

The performance of Mortenson is excellent. He is persuasive as an Italian American who is just a fish out of water in the South as Shirley is.  Ali gives a very dignified and refined performance, one who doesn't fit in the racist society of the 60s, but by even his people as well. He seems adrift in the sea of music and alcohol. Ali brings dignity and respect to himself and his profession. Both are fantastic performances in a film that needed another rewrite and racial sensitivity.

CONCLUSION

Thank you again, Lafronda! You are welcome anytime. Friends, if you see a movie that I don't see and want to be featured on my website, hit up my website's Facebook page and you can be my next GUEST CRITIC!