Green Book (2018)

Best Picture, 2019 ceremony. Mahershala Ali's composure and Viggo Mortensen's expansive comic timing explain the immediate appeal of this musician-and-driver road trip. The return visit is less rewarding when Don Shirley's guarded inner life keeps yielding to Tony's education. A meal, a letter and a disagreement tend to arrive with their emotional job already marked. The actors offer details worth revisiting, but the neatly reassuring structure limits what those details can change.