[5.0/10] *Green Book* is quaint. It is the cinematic equivalent of a Hallmark card on race relations, there to make you feel good, reflect the real world in only the vaguest, gentlest way, and then be quickly discarded and forgotten. It is thoroughly lacking in incisiveness or genuine insight, and its take on race and overcoming divisions is about as deep as a thimble. The film’s perspective is limited and provincial, when it’s not out-and-out troubling, and at times even insulting, in its oversimplifications.

The movie tells the story of Tony Vallelonga, a hearty spark plug of a man from The Bronx, who drives Don Shirley, a cultured piano player, through the South on the latter man’s music tour. *Green Book* is founded on the tension between Tony’s salt-of-the-earth, profane, and uncouth manner, informed by his working class Italian upbringing, and Dr. Shirley’s mannered, measured, and at times aloof bearing, informed by his position as a black man who has to operate in white circles. Along the way, the two clash and come into conflict, but inevitably find common ground and camaraderie through their shared experiences.

That in and of itself is not a bad premise for a film. There’s pathos to be wrung from the intersection of a man kept on the fringes of society because of his class and one ostensibly welcomed but always held at arm's length because of the color his skin. There’s a common understanding that can be established between one man who holds prejudices until he’s forced to confront real people and not just abstractions, and another who looks down on those less devoted to dignity until he learns to appreciate the heart that persists even where manners are lacking. And there’s catharsis to be had from the shared realizations of someone who is the master of his own circle but ignorant to the realities of the wider world, and one who’s seen the world at a distance but comes to know the greater warmth of community and family.

*Green Book* just doesn't actually achieve any of that. It tires. God help it, the film tries. And if you squint, you can see where the movie gestures toward these ideas, and in exceedingly rare moments, even grazes them. But those noble efforts are lost in its crayon-sketched characters and events, its rampant clichés and archetypes in lieu of depth or complexity, and its bent toward reassuring its audience of who’s really good and who’s really bad rather than confronting the gray areas or the systems that reinforces the types of bigotry the film seems to shake off so easily.

Some of that could be forgiven if the movie, for all its attempts at feelgoodery and humor, were more pleasant to watch. It’s characters are, at best, difficult to like. Even setting aside Tony Vallelonga’s racism -- the fodder for his “I’m a real boy!” transformation over the course of the film -- the character is mostly obnoxious. He’s a pale cross between Tony Soprano and Homer Simpson, with an Olive Garden version of the former’s bearing and perspective, and charmless version of the latter’s doltishness, loyalty, and appetite. He is, even at his best, a large foul-mouthed toddler, always having to be told not to give into his worst and easiest impulses. I’m a firm believer that characters need places to go, to grow, in films, but Vallelonga is annoying for too long in the film to find much merit in that approach here.

While Dr. Shirley is, at least, not so eminently grating as Tony is, the film still needs him to grow and change as well, and so makes him rude and condescending for much of the picture. It’s easier to swallow here, since while Don Shirley is occasionally a bit unreasonable, he’s mainly either having to navigate spaces where he’s made insecure or even at risk because of his skin color, or responding to one of Tony’s immature missteps. What’s more, Shirley has the benefit of being played by Mahershala Ali, who deserves better than this film and its script, but who adds layers to Don’s emotional reactions to the different challenges he faces, and breathes life into the relationship between him and Tony that’s poorly written, but nevertheless the backbone of the film.

The best things you can say for *Green Book* apart from that performance (wasted on a film that doesn't deserve it), is that it’s nice to look at and listen to. Cinematographer Sean Porter not only captures the scenic beauty as Vallelonga and Shirley traverse the American South, but uses a wide shot of Dr. Shirley surrounded by isolated by his possessions to convey his inner loneliness, and communicates Dr. Shirley’s awkward place between white and black society better visually than the film can ever manage with its ham-handed dialogue.

At the same time, so many films try to frame a main character as a virtuoso or a talent or a star, and the actual presentation falls flat. That’s a pitfall *Green Book* avoids entirely. When Don Shirley sits down to play the piano, his performance takes your breath away, and the audience is not only knocked back by the sumptuous melody and talent put on display, but understands how even hardscrabble Tony could be moved by it too. Between the music itself, the masterful playing from double and real life pianist Kris Bowers, and the nuanced acting of Ali, each time Dr. Shirley sits down in front of a Steinway, it’s a treat.

But those gifts are squandered on a story of friendship that’s as predictable as it is unearned. The film is rife with questionable moments. (For example, in one scene Tony cajoles and eventually persuades his African American counterpart on the merits of fried chicken.) *Green Book* is going for the old chestnut of the prejudiced but well-meaning man with a heart of gold. But it’s take on racism is so archaic, its prelude to Tony’s changes so full of slurs and backwards views and general prickishness intended to somehow be endearing, that when he finally does come around, it’s too little too late. Tony loves his family and eventually does right enough by his partner, but the film gives us too few reasons to root for him, and is often misguided in how it tries to demonstrate his decency or Don’s failings and peccadillos.

There is occasional warmth, and even joy, in *Green Book*. But in the final tally, it’s a film that seems built for 1989 instead of 2019. Its “can’t we all just get along” and “both sides need to grow” messages ring hollow in the current era where there’s a growing acknowledgment that our cultural ills are neither so simple nor succinct. Even apart from its dime store observations, hacky dialogue, and mealy racial pablum, it just doesn't present much in terms of its story or characters worth investing in. Not every Oscar-calibrated film has to make a truly powerful statement, but it should at least make for engaging cinema, and despite its strenuous and strained efforts, *Green Book* fails on both fronts.