When I was in high school my dad gave me a Malcolm X baseball cap as a Christmas present. To be honest, while I’d like to claim the highest degree of literacy at 16 years, I had no clue who Malcolm X was or what he stood for. That changed when, walking into a store one day in my hometown of Logan, Utah, a man leaned out of his truck and said, “Nice hat, n***er lover!” I was floored. I couldn’t comprehend why someone would use that word. Apparently I was living in a bubble. I thought racism ended with the civil rights movement in 1964.

Nowadays, particularly after the election of Donald Trump, racism shows its ugly face on a daily basis. It makes sense. When the leader of the free world caters to racists and demonstrates racist behavior and speech of his own, it makes sense they would crawl out of the shadows and into public discourse more prominently.

Which brings me to GREEN BOOK, the upcoming film starring Viggo Mortensen (CAPTAIN FANTASTIC) and Mahershala Ali (MOONLIGHT). Is it just me, or do movies like GREEN BOOK seem to dot the cinematic landscape more during times of turmoil and crisis? In this case, Mortensen plays Tony Lip, a New York City nightclub bouncer who takes a job as a chauffeur/bodyguard for Ali’s character, Don Shirley, a brilliant pianist on tour in the Deep South.

I don’t know the numbers on what tone and tenor movies take during times of upheaval and discord, but I’m confident art imitates life and, as America Ferrera said in 2017 at the Sundance Film Festival, “…in times like these, times of real, real questioning and reflection and concern, it becomes that much clearer that our role in society is to connect.”

GREEN BOOK is directed by Peter Farrelly (yes, the THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY co-director) and hits theaters on November 21, 2018.