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There are two types of films which are essentially a series of vignettes: road movies and biography pictures. Each often suffers from trying to stuff unrelated elements into a single package. Green Book is both a road movie and a biography that tells a single, cohesive story of unlikely friendship amidst societal injustice. It is a worthy and entertaining film that remains enjoyable even where the events are hard to stomach.

Green Book is the “based on real events” story of a black musician (Dr. Don Shirley played by Mahershala Ali) touring the Deep South in the early 1960s. For his safety, he is accompanied by an Italian driver (“Tony Lip” Vallelonga played by Viggo Mortensen) who could be well described in stereotypical terms — he’s essentially a thug.

The movie derives its title from “The Negro Motorist Green Book” — a travel guide listing “friendly” businesses and advisories about local hazards (racist laws) to help keep African Americans “from running into difficulties” while travelling in the United States. The 1962 edition factors into the film, though it does little good for the New York based pair as they encounter the morally repugnant conditions pervasive throughout the South. With its 130 minutes of run time, this film could have gone a lot of directions. It leverages the format of its genres to strike a balance that engages the audience and holds them in a personal and relatable way.

In the standard “hero’s journey” style, the main character grows and is redeemed as a result of his trials. In Green Book we have a pair of heroes, and both change as a result of their travel and, more so, influence of the other. Dr. Shirley begins as an overly refined gentleman accustomed to — even demanding — the reverence he is given living in and above Carnegie Hall. His last performance of the film is playing hustling rhythm and blues style in a chicken-joint — truly enjoying himself. In an opening scene, Tony Lip throws away two glasses in his own home because his wife allowed two black workmen to sip lemonade from them. Naturally, taking the job Driving Miss Daisy — er, Dr. Shirley — reverses his opinions.

The principal actors’ performances ring true, but special mention should go to Linda Cardellini, playing Tony Lip’s wife. Though she is at odds with her husband, over pretty much every story point, she remains devoted to him. The actress manages to convey this dissonance without the crutch of some confrontational monologue. Instead, she demands only that he write her letters while he’s away with the “music doctor” for two months.

It would be easy to write about this story like some “woke hipster” babbling on about how these men encountered only a small part of the daily life for millions of Americans, or ramble about Oscar consideration in a more inclusive Hollywood, such talk would do the movie itself disservice. Though it makes limited use of the grandness of the theatre screen, Green Book deserves to be seen in the theatre.

Torn between a few well reviewed titles, we decided to see Searching in theater last night. It was a gimmicky movie with a compelling story that strikes at the core of modern experience. It warrants seeing in a place where you can consume the film without distraction, but it rewards such dedicated attention. There are some decent twists in this one, so we’ll be trying to avoid spoilers in this review – that there is a twist shouldn’t be a surprise, one trailer boldly claims: “you won’t see the twist coming.”

The story is straightforward. A man (John Cho) and his wife (Sara Sohn) have a daughter. The wife dies of cancer, and the man and daughter soldier on having the sort of single parent + only child relationship one would expect. Until one day when the daughter doesn’t come home. The story quickly unfolds to reveal that he doesn’t really know anything about what his daughter has been up to.

The gimmick of the film is that the entire story is told through the screens of the various computers used by the family and, eventually, the police. It’s an easy to follow narrative, despite the gimmick, because we are now at a point where we understand the windows and clicking. Fortunately for the audience and story, every character of importance is a video blogger and Facetime user. There are a few moments where more traditional camera work is necessary – fortunately there are news clips and dramatically placed nanny-cams.

Searching derives its title partially from the efforts to find the daughter but also from the quick jumps to Google to look up some term or social media site. It is the story of how the characters’ lives play out through their use of computers, but it is also the story of how society works today. The father searches through his daughter’s laptop to discover not only where she is but – in a way – who she is. (It’s not as cryptic as that… it’s more thematic than gratuitous shock twist.)

All of the characters are believable, though I did have some problems with Debra Messing as Detective Sergeant Vick. She doesn’t quite talk like a cop, and that led me down a path of unwarranted suspicion. In trying to explain it, I’m reminded of a quote from The Blues Brothers, “It’s got a cop motor… It’s got cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks. …” Police officers walk and talk like police officers. After you see Searching, you’ll tell me that it’s the role she’s playing, and she does that well. Sure, but it’s just not… “cop”.

This is the second major movie to use the gimmick of being told through laptop screens and iPhones. The “shock” movie Unfriended was the first, and Modern Family did an episode this way too. It works as a medium only when the story warrants this medium. A warning to Hollywood: there are only a few such stories, and Searching takes up two of those spots.