Green Book : A friendship beyond color

America has witnessed another bloodbath induced by Gun violence and stories of such mindless violence continue to bring out larger issues of mental health, gun regulation and racists discrimination. Though racism is not always primary the resentment towards people of color is evident even now and though the Film , the Green Book was released in the year 2018, yet its is in resonance to the current happenings. All movie lovers would be familiar with this movie as it caught the attention due to the controversies surrounding it. But against all odds, this movie proved to be beautiful yet simple and most importantly taught us the meaning of true friendship. The titular name “ Green Book” not only refers to the guidebook for African- American travelers in the mid 20th century but acts as medium to connect the two protagonists . This movie is about two completely opposite people; an African American Jazz and classical pianist Don Shirley who prefers living his life with a straight face and no personal emotions to share, on the other hand there is Tony Lip; an Italian American bouncer who is a no nonsense person and prefers his fists over words. Their story starts when a jobless Tony is offered a job by Don, a job to be his driver and bodyguard for his two months concert tour through the Midwest and Deep South. Due to different personalities and ideologies, they always ended up in an uncomfortable and difficult situations. Since the beginning of the movie we realize that Tony personally had no affection towards colored people and had some prejudice against them which also included Don. But over the course of time, Tony realized that there are so many people like him who look down on people just because he/she is colored. As he was getting to know Don more, the more he was realizing how hard it is for the colored people to survive in the world. No matter how you are as a person, they would never consider them as same. As we proceed with the story, we see the two characters bonding over a chicken, an exchange of letters between Tony with his wife and as Don would say ‘ eyes on the road’ to Tony whenever he turns around to talk to him. They both started to realize that what they think is right for their life, is not necessarily always correct. They learned that each and every person teaches us something as they enter our life. Tony learned how to express himself with words while Don started opening up to people more. This is based on a real life story and actor Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen who portrayed the role of Don and Tony respectively pulled it off in the most realistic way possible. Also both Don and Tony remained life long friends in real life. Although there were many people who criticized the movie for many reasons, but this movie was totally worth the time. It had a lot of humor in it and the jokes were actually quite funny. The scenery of the places were beautiful and acting was on point. People who haven’t watch it yet, should give it a try and write more about it. Udeeta Pegu, Ist Semester