GREEN BOOK.

• Author: Slade, Stephanie
• Position: MOVIE - Movie review - Brief article

In a sense, it's no surprise that Green Book--a feel-good dramedy about a mob-adjacent family man (Viggo Mortensen) who takes a job as chauffeur and bodyguard for a black concert pianist (Mahershala AN) on tour in the 1960s South--won this year's best-picture Oscar. After all, Driving Miss Daisy charmed audiences and the Academy of Motion Pictures with a similar plot involving a driver and a passenger from different backgrounds getting to know and like each other.

But that movie, released in 1989, came at a moment when Americans were apparently eager to celebrate long decades of racial progress. In 2019, the kumbaya ethos seems decidedly less prevalent. For many in U.S. politics today, clashes between worldviews--along the lines of race, class, gender, or partisan...