Green Book - 5 nominations

Best Picture - Jim Burke, Charles B. Wessler, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly and Nick Vallelonga

Actor in a Leading Role, Viggo Mortensen
Actor in a Supporting Role, Mahershala Ali
Film Editing, Patrick J. Don Vito
Writing (Original Screenplay), Written by Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly

Green Book is based on the true story of Dr. Donald Shirley, renowned concert pianist and his musical tour of the south with his trio.  As he prepares for the tour, he engages Tony "Lip" Vallelonga to serve as his driver and personal security staff.  In the film, Tony Lip comes from a tough Italian neighborhood and holds prejudicial views about a number of different people with diverse backgrounds.  Dr. Shirley is a highly educated, refined, intellectual elitist who insists on doing the right thing at all times, but has a lonely existence without close relationships with family or friends.  Over the course of the film, a friendship grows between the two men as their differences fade and they each get glimpses into each other's worlds.

Taken on its own, the film celebrates what it means to see the humanity of the other and how that creates change in people who are racist.  The evolution of racism to humanity and connection is one that makes us feel good, which I think is the reason that people like this film so much.  There is another side to this movie, however, in which Dr. Shirley's family disputes the film's narrative vehemently (who remembers my admonition that "based on a true story" does not mean "IS the true story?"), and I read that Mahershala Ali called Shirley's family to apologize for the film.  Hard to know what to make of that.

I don't know what is true, but the bottom line is that watching the film feels good and heartwarming and uplifting.  The screenplay as written is beautiful.  Given all I have learned about the reality of the story, it's hard to support the Best Picture nomination, but, if this were written as purely invented story, I think I would have loved it.  Given that, I have no choice but to embrace the film as it is and hope that it continues to teach important lessons to those who still somehow need to learn that we are all people and that relationships are about who we are, not what we are.