***A white streetwise bouncer and an articulate black pianist tour the Deep South in 1962***

A tough, working class Italian New Yawker (Viggo Mortensen) is forced to take a gig driving a refined African-American concert pianist (Mahershala Ali) through the Midwest and Deep South in 1962. Linda Cardellini plays the wife of the Italian.

“Green Book” (2018) was inspired by the real-life story and written by the son of Tony Lip (Mortensen). Like all great dramas, it’s compelling from the get-go and the road movie approach provides an entertaining and revelatory string of episodes, not to mention occasionally amusing. While the movie’s been accused of reverse racism, it’s actually balanced, showing plenty of poor, inarticulate blacks and vice versa. The message is to base your perceptions on the individual rather than ignorant generalizations.

The film runs 2 hours, 10 minutes, and was shot in New York City and Louisiana.

GRADE: A