Green Book (4/5 Stars)

There alot of interracial buddy movies out there. The genre was essentially born with In the Heat of the Night in 1968, the first interracial buddy cop movie, which seemed to spawn a different iteration every couple of years (a few examples 48 Hours, Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour). Green Book belongs with the best of them and in a way is more than that. Other interracial buddy movies focus only on the race aspect of the buddy relationship. Green Book does more than that. The characters here are also separated by class and just as importantly, if not more so, their ideas about individualism.

The plot is disarmingly simple. It is based on a true story that took place within the space of a few months in the early 1960s. The Dr. Don Shirley, the celebrated concern pianist, is embarking on a cross-country tour, including the deep south, and has hired Tony "Lip" Vallalonga as his driver/bodyguard. Dr. Don Shirley is black and Tony "Lip" is white. But as I said, there's more. Dr. Don Shirley is upper class. Tony "Lip" is working class. And most importantly Dr. Shirley is an individual. He has eclectic tastes, has no family or close friends, and is not simply a good piano player but one of the best. Tony "Lip" on the other hand, is Italian. He's from the Bronx.

They mostly get along. Tony "Lip" may harbor basic 1960s prejudice against black people, but does not seem to apply them to Dr. Shirley, who has obvious class and money and will pay him a good wage for his work. Dr. Shirley appreciates the usefulness of Tony's skills and personality attributes even though he clearly does not want them for himself. They travel through the segregated south, but the hardships that prevail upon them there are never more interesting than how these two interact with each other. Most of it pretty funny in an odd couple kind of way, Tony "Lip" being the sloppy easy-going guy and Dr. Shirley being the neat uptight man. Tony "Lip" introduces Dr. Shirley to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Dr. Shirley helps Tony "Lip" with the letters he writes to his wife. By the time the movie was ending and Tony "Lip" was hurrying back to make Christmas dinner with his family, I was happily being reminded of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. This is an enjoyable movie. Is it one of the best of the year? (It has been nominated for Best Picture). I don't think so. I think it lacks the sort of ambition a Best Picture nominee should have. But I'm not unhappy with its presence.

What is a racial stereotype? It is a belief about the typical attributes of a type of people. If you would agree that there is such a thing as a type of people, than it follows that there exist racial stereotypes about them that are true. At one point in this movie, Tony "Lip" offers some fried chicken to Dr. Shirley. Dr. Shirley refuses it. What's the problem, says Tony, you people are suppposed to like fried chicken. Dr. Shirely takes offense. What's the problem, says Tony, if someone told me all guineas like spaghetti and meatballs, I wouldn't get offended. Now, we all know why Dr. Shirley would get offended. Perhaps a better question then is why Tony "Lip" wouldn't get offended. The answer is not a question of race, it is a question of individualism. Let's put it this way: The racial stereotype that black people like fried chicken is not offensive to Dr. Shirley because he believes a liking of fried chicken is inherently bad. It isn't. Nobody thinks that. Dr. Shirley is offended because he is being automatically placed into a group based on his race, when he, as an individual, does not share those characteristics. Tony "Lipp" on the other hand does not identify as an individual, or not nearly as much. He is an Italian. He grew up and lived his entire life in one neighborhood in the Bronx. He is not offended by the idea of a person telling him Italians like spaghetti and meatballs because he does not have a problem with being grouped with Italians and having others assume Italian characterisitics about him. When told a group of stuck rich guys won't like his last name, he says, if they don't like it, they can shove it, I'll wait outside. It's only a problem to Dr. Shirley to not be accepted or allowed to be something different from Black. Tony "Lip" is content with being Italian and does not want to be anything else.

America has a long history of promoting individuals and individualism like that of Dr. Shirley. Our culture say far less about the merits of being part of a group. The pitfalls of being part of a group are well known: less room for vanity, less chance of fame, and you have to suppress certain aspects of yourself that the majority believe are not beneficial or simply don't like. But what about the benefits? Everyone in Tony "Lip" neighborhood knows and respects him. His Christmas dinners are attended by a large amount of family and friends. Whether or not he needs it, his relatives show up to provide support. Contrast this with the situation of Dr. Shirley. He receives lots of applause for being an outstanding pianist, but he has no close family, he lives alone, his best friend might be his butler. This is not a result of his race. He has chosen to put himself on a pedestal apart from other people. His concerns about racial stereotypes are not always a blow against racial prejudice, sometimes they are an exercise in vanity. He wants other people to believe he is exceptional. To the extent that he is exceptional, he deserves that consideration. But this is unrelated to whether it is okay to assume a black person likes fried chicken. If most black people like fried chicken, and liking fried chicken is not a bad thing, it isn't offensive to say or assume so. It is at least not racially offensive. Individuals may be offended for being lumped in with a group and a lot of what seems to pass as racism nowadays can fit squarely within the latter category. Not being able to vote or sit in a restaurant. That's racism. Microagressions, I'm afraid not.

This movie was directed Peter Farrelly without his brother Bobby Farrelly. There is probably a story there. The Farrelly brothers were responsible for some of the best comedies of the 1990s (Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, There's Something About Mary), but have not been doing that great since. This is a good change of pace. 

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (4/5 Stars)

Sometimes a comedian's persona parlays perfectly into a dramatic role adding depth and pathos into what was before a rather two dimensional act. A great example of this is Adam Sandler's turn in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Drunk Love. It was ostensibly the same rage-prone Adam Sandler character that he got famous for in a bunch of pure comedic movies like Happy Gilmore and The Waterboy, but Punch-Drunk Love got inside it and turned it the Sandler-persona for one brief shining moment into the stuff of art.

This can be said of Melissa McCarthy's turn here in Can You Ever Forgive Me? I have always considered her shtick a bit overrated and too dependent on being a dependable jerk. In Can You Ever Forgive Me?, she inhabits a role, playing a real life jerk named Lee Israel, that takes this persona to the logical end of the line and then asks the audience to consider her nature for more time than a punchline. Their are moments of subliminity in this movie when you feel like you really understand her in a new way and, for a brief shining moment, what floats to the top is the stuff of art. Melissa McCarthy was nominated for an Oscar for her work here (her co-star Richard E. Grant was also nominated) and it is well-deserved.

Lee Israel was a real person, a writer who specialized in biographies in the bad old days of New York City. In the early 1990s, after had lost her last job because of alcoholism, and without friends or family because she was a jerk, she became desperate. She could not pay the rent and more dramatically, she couldn't pay the vet costs for her sole companion, her beloved cat. While doing research in the library for a book on Fanny Brice nobody wanted, she serendipitously found a few old letters from the comedian. She sold one, got some money, but not all that much because the letter wasn't exciting. She added some caustic wit onto the next one in a p.s. line. That letter sold for much more. So she started forging letters in the style of other authors like Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, and such.

She actually did not make all that much money. Still the movie is fascinating in several procedural ways. It explains quite succinctly how Lee Isreal made these letters and how she fooled the anitque dealers. It also makes apparent Lee Israel's artistic worth. Nobody would buy her books, but everyone believes that the letters are real because Israel succeeds so well in capturing the voices of the authors she is impersonating.

But most of all, the movie is succeeds in its portrayal of a character at her lowest gaining some victories however small. Lee Israel is a miserable person. At the time she embarks on her criminal career she remeets an acquaintance named Jack Hock, played here by Richard E. Grant. Jack Hock is absurdly optimistic given his status as a lonely and penniless queer man. One of the biggest laughs in the movie is when Jack Hock is revealed to be homeless and speaking about this to Lee he relates his failures but adds, "I can't say I have any regrets." "That can't possibly be true," she deadpans. Jack Hock is so low on the societal totem-pole he seems to be unable to judge Lee's immoral behavior. This allows him to become her drinking buddy and every now and again, there is one particularly sublime moment in a jazz club, we see Lee Israel relax enough to the point where she experiences something along the lines of happiness.

This is what the movie does so well. It presents a person that is not particularly likable, but also does not require the audience to like them. The movie shows a frank discussion with Lee and her agent (played by Jane Curtain) in the beginning of the movie and allows the agent to win the argument as to whether or not she deserves an advance of money ("You're not famous enough to be an asshole," her agent explains). However, the movie succeeds in explaining the character and once a character is explained, it is possible to empathize with them and her small victories become something the audience shares in. Courtroom speeches from guilty defendants are the thing of drama and Can You Ever Forgive Me? does not disappoint in this regard. We believe Lee when she states that she does not regret her actions, that the period in which she was forging letters and being able to pay the rent and help her cat were some of the best times in her life and that she had never been more proud of her work's artistic merit. We also believe her when she admits that pretending to be someone else is a coward's act, that the true artist is someone who explores herself, which she has always failed to do. She is granted parole and we are glad she doesn't receive a prison term. She is directed to attend AA meetings, which she doesn't, and we forgive her that as well. She is too old to change and is not asking anything more from us anyway.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?, was directed by Marielle Heller, She previously had made the movie The Diary of a Teenage Girl, another movie that took great interest in the overlooked inner world of a not-so-obvious character. I hope to see more movies from her.