Best Actor 2018: Viggo Mortensen in Green Book

Viggo Mortensen received his third Oscar nomination for portraying Frank "Tony Lip" Vallelonga in Green Book.

Green Book tells the story of piano virtuoso Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), and his new driver Tony Lip, as they undergo a tour in the deep south.

Viggo Mortensen is one of the very best working actors today. Even in small roles like Carlito's Way, Witness, and Crimson Tide, Mortensen manages to make an impression. His work in the LOTR films is of a proper leading man. Even when the film doesn't work, like A Dangerous Method, Mortensen is always on point with such a considerable range as a performer. His performance in The Road is all time great, his last Oscar nominated in Captain Fantastic turn was a brilliant nuanced depiction of a character that could've easily become one note in the wrong hands. Sadly that Mortensen I write of, is not all that evident in his turn here as Italian stereo...I mean Italian American Tony Lip. Now given Mortensen's prior work I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in terms of being steered into the wrong direction by his director, Peter Farrelly, who is better known for his broad comedies than the prestige drama Green Book aspires to be. I say this because in many ways Mortensen's work here would be far more fitting to such a comedy than a serious realization of the man Tony Lip was.

This stems from a problem with the film, as I mentioned in Ali's review, which it really is broken into that attempt at prestige, with Farrelly falling unto his comfort zone in the world of the buddy comedy films. In fact one can argue it has as much in common with Dumb and Dumber, as it does with say Driving Miss Daisy, as perhaps a more accurate name, given the titular green book plays little into the overall narrative, would've been Dumb and Proper. Mortensen's performance is to mak em rilly Italian, you know, what'che I'm sayings here? His accent would be right at home as the overblown Italian character of a wacky comedy. I would say kind of like Peter Seller's accent as Inspector Clouseau in A Shot in the Dark, that ridiculous French accent, while Mortensen's really isn't far off from that. This isn't an instance though where I feel that Mortensen just decided to go rogue and troll the film. This is rather Farrelly's incompetence when it comes to controlling the tone of the film. This is as Mortensen's work in this way is attuned, by how Farrelly depicts nearly all the Italian material. Everybody's a loud talking, big eating goodfella, or proper workin class fella, whose also big eating. There's not a lot of subtlety given to anything in between, it's a big loud and brash, which in turn is Mortensen's performance, for the most part.

It is easy to see why Mortensen is on this path as a lot of his scenes, especially his early ones, emphasize Tony as this big broad caricature. As we see him punching out punks, eating the largest meals possible, usually comically large, and just espousing himself in a way one describe as lacking a great deal of dignity. Mortensen's work in turn tries to bring this to life I suppose, as I would ask how does one deliver the line "titsburg" when wondering about the size of women's breasts in Pittsburgh, in a particularly subtle way. The character of Tony Lip very much exists within the confines of the broad comedy roots that Farrelly does not shed. Mortensen's work really does just play along with that in his boisterous line delivers, and swaggering around like he's a leaning tower of pizza (wocka wocka). He is an extreme desired to be the extreme odd couple pairing with Ali's Shirley who is a proper, sophisticated individual, who prefers to speak softly. Mortensen plays it up as to be desired, to create the what one would be to assume is the "comedy" of the situation. As I mentioned in Ali's review, the best thing to come out of these scenes, though are just the most casual interactions due to Ali and Mortensen having chemistry with one another. They can carry a conversation even if it isn't always worth having. Again though their depiction of growing warmth between the two isn't half bad, and does depend on both actors.

Sadly though the film has much higher ambitions than its odd couple pairing, which is a problem for Mortensen when he's playing a broad character in what suddenly tries to be a serious drama. He's essentially stuck with the over the top mannerisms, and voice, throughout, though I guess I do have to give him credit for his consistency in his mannerisms. Of course this I suppose is the way to approach as the film just jumps back and forth in these moments with no real rhyme or reason in its tone. There are even some slight indications of a desire for a more dramatic narrative in a few of the Tony only scenes, though only hinted at. These being moments where he is offered jobs, that obviously are criminal in nature, that Tony turns down, and Mortensen, does covey the reservations of such a life. This isn't focused upon in the slightest, and it is a potentially interesting detail just left hanging there. The even worse example of this is the racism of the character that we see initially when he throws away two of his own glasses that black workers drank out of. This essentially never really even comes up. It frankly seems like something from an earlier draft of the script, since there is no point in which it is dealt with. I guess the film just wants you to assume his casual racism went away once he started working with Shirley, however the idea of it isn't really even touched upon in his interactions with Shirley.

That whole component of the film is just a mess as written, therefore Mortensen can't do anything with it, because there's nothing there to work with. There's no transformation in Tony, because they wrote a point A (throwing the cups away) to point Z (telling a relative not to call Shirley by a derogatory term), and no stops in-between. As even the sort of distance between the two shown in their "buddy road movie" scenes, are written based upon their difference in personalities not their races. It is just a mind boggling moment to introduce than to barely even hand wave it away by the end of the film. The film clearly is far more comfortable with its personality based dynamic, which again there is a nice chemistry between Mortensen and Ali there. Now although his overarching performance is broad, the talent of Mortensen can be seen in fits and bits, sort of outside the stricture of the character. These in some purely reactionary moments, hey look at the chosen screen capture, that is a face of some nuance, as he looks upon Ali's dramatic in the rain speech. There are other moments of some nuance mainly in reaction, however they sadly don't add up within the character who from his first scene is a broad caricature, and remains as such to the very last scene. Mortensen almost seems to throw those into just remind us of the great actor he typically is. Mortensen's performance here is essentially sabotaged by a film that wants two completely incompatible elements of a broadly comic character at the center of film that is a self-serious story. Mortensen tries his best to try to do something that fulfills that impossible request, I don't hate it, nonetheless, from what I've seen in his typically very impressive oeuvre, this is the worst performance he's ever given.