There are some actors who never won any oscar even if they made many movies, due to misfortune or due to the Academy foggy selection criteria. Viggo Mortensen, the danish origin actor well known for his role in Aragorn of TLOTR is one of them. Although he worked with people like David Cronenberg, Peter Jackson and Ridley Scott he never won the golden statue.
In NYC in 1962 an Italian man living in Bronx, Tony Lip Vallelonga, work as night waiter on the Copa Club where his nights are punctuated by brawls, cigarettes, tefths and dirty escamotages. Trying to raise some side money he found a job as a driver of a man, DR. Donald Shirley defined a genius by many and a true cultured man, to start a full tour on the south of the state with an hidenn purpose to fight racism and overturn minds.
Tony is pictured as a simple, gross and rude individual, who just cares about cigarettes and food but, the appearence of a pure gentleman such as Doc Donald Shirley in his life will change him forever. As a matter of fact, they both starts to open themselves, highlighting that no man is useless or worst than another one and that even people who show a certain standard of living can be lost, embittered and alone.
The movie inherit the name from an old little book distributed in 60's, defining the accommodations where black people where allowed to rest across the states.
Farrelly, disrupt himself completely. The well known director, famous for being a name in comic cinema, delivers a masterpiece without forgetting his proper and common irony, but mashing this up with poetry, friendship, music and touching several aspects felt by tenderhearted people. Actually the story is totally true and you can find more here
Soundtracks are perfect too! The album is composed by the talented composer Kris Bowers and perfectly match the atmospheres of the scenes, spanning from jive, blues up to classical and jazz.
Viggo is a magnificent starring, moving from an unfortunate closed minded person to become a wiser man with a totally different approach to life.
Being close to someone better than you, ELEVATE you and i always thought that
Anyway, the movie is really significant under every aspects, the editing and the photography is good too. Screenplay is not totally original since Tony was the father of one of the screenwriters but the movie is very well constructed, never trivial or met again. Closing, i really hope well for Viggo Mortensen at the Oscar Ceremony wishing him to get the statue, and honestly i also wish luck to the movie, even if the Roma by Alfonso Cuaron is lurking from behind. (But i'll write more on this later!)
Stay in touch and enjoy !