Summary
At a diner, Tony writes a letter to Dolores, bragging that he had steak and eggs for breakfast and telling her that the band is playing at "very ritzy joints." We see Don playing music in Iowa, as a voiceover of Tony writing the letter says, "Dr. Shirley and I are getting along pretty good, but sometimes I think he gets sad, and that's why he drinks too much. I never knew how very beautiful this country was until now. You won't believe how beautiful nature is. It is as beautiful as they say."
At the end of the letter, Tony mentions that he's eating spaghetti and meatballs that taste like Chinese noodles and ketchup, and tells Dolores that he will write her another letter when they get down south. Don eyes the letter Tony is writing.
On the road in Kentucky, Tony asks Don if he has any family, to which Don replies, "Not really." Don tells him that he used to be in touch with his brother, but it got harder and harder to stay in touch because of his career as a musician. He also mentions that he was married to a woman named June, referring to her as a "good person," but admitting that he could not be both a good musician and a good husband.
Suddenly, Tony spots a Kentucky Fried Chicken and becomes excited because they are actually in Kentucky. They pull into the parking lot and Don tells Tony that he doesn't want any. On the road, Tony relishes the Kentucky Fried Chicken, calling it the best he's ever had.
Don tells Tony, "I've never had fried chicken in my life." Tony is flabbergasted, suggesting that black people love fried chicken, grits, and collard greens, as he knows from the black cooks in the Army. Tony hands Don a piece of chicken, insisting that he eat it, and Don obliges hesitantly. As Don begins to enjoy the chicken, Tony tells him that his father always told him to do everything 100%: "When you work, work. When you laugh, laugh. When you eat, eat like it's your last meal."
After Don asks what they are supposed to do with the bones, Tony throws his out the window and Don does so too, smiling. However, when Tony throws his cup out the window, Don makes him go back and pick it up, even though Tony insists, "Nature takes care of the Earth!"
In Louisville, Kentucky, Tony pulls up to a beat-up motel, a blacks-only motel where Don must stay. "This can't be right," Tony says, "Place looks like my ass." Don sits outside his room that night, when another man asks him if he wants to play a game, but he declines. They are insulted by his refusal and he tells them he has to go visit a friend.
In his hotel room, Tony looks at a picture of Dolores, folds a whole pizza in half, and eats it, before looking at the Green Book. Suddenly there's a knock on the door from George, who says that he saw Don getting beaten up at a local bar. Tony hurries to Don's aid.
At the bar, a group of white men berate Don and beat him up, when Tony busts in tells them to let Don go. When they refuse and one of them pulls out a knife, Tony touches his back pocket and threatens to pull out his gun. Before anything else can happen, the bartender pulls out a rifle and orders the men to let Don go. "I want these Yankees off of my property," the bartender says, and Don leaves the bar with George and Tony.
Outside, Tony confronts Don about leaving his hotel. "Does geography really matter? If I was at a bar in your neighborhood, would the conversation be any different?" Don asks Tony, and asks him if he really has a gun. "Of course not," Tony says.
Don plays his concert in Louisville as Tony watches from the back, applauding with the crowd when it's over. "Thank you for your warm hospitality," Don says at the end of his performance.
In the car, Don encourages Tony to enunciate more. Suddenly the car breaks down next to a large field. As Tony tends to the engine, Don gets out of the car and looks around, seeing a large group of black workers working in the nearby field, all of whom look over at him. He looks at them, then gets back in the car, and they drive away.
At a large grand mansion in Raleigh, North Carolina, a host introduces Don to a large fancy crowd. After Tony takes a pimento cheese sandwich off a tray, he spits it out immediately. At dinner that night, the host serves fried chicken in honor of Don, and Don looks hesitant, as Tony smiles knowingly at him. He plays the piano for the guests that night.
During the intermission, Don goes to use the bathroom, when the host directs him towards an outhouse outside. "I'd prefer not to use that," Don tells the host, mentioning that he will gladly go back to his hotel to use the restroom, but it will take 30 minutes. The host tells him that they will wait.
In the car, Don compares Tony to the white hosts of the concert, which Tony does not like. Tony launches into an impassioned monologue about the fact that Don is being prejudiced, and suggesting that he has more in common with New York Jews than he does with the "hillbilly pricks" of the South.
Back at the mansion, Don finishes the concert cordially. Nearby, Tony asks George why Don is so friendly with people who are so rude, and tells him that he would pee on the floor if he was treated as badly as Don is. Oleg comes up and tells Tony that he needs to control himself if they're going to encounter other ugly circumstances in the South.
Oleg tells Tony that Don asked to tour the South, even though he could have stayed up North and played concerts for much more money. "Why?" Tony asks, puzzled, and Oleg drops his cigarette on the ground.
The next day, Don sees Tony writing a letter to Dolores and asks what he's doing. "Looks more like a piecemeal ransom note," he says, asking to look at Don's writing. He notices that Don spells "dear" as "deer" and reads the rest of the letter, noting that it's rather boring and uninspired. "You know this is pathetic, right?"
Don dictates a letter for Don that reads, "When I think of you, I'm reminded of the beautiful plains of Iowa...The distance between us is breaking my spirit. My time and experiences without you are meaningless to me. Falling in love with you is the easiest thing I've ever done." "This is very fucking romantic," Tony says, smiling.
We see Dolores reading the letter, tears in her eyes. At the end of the letter, Tony asks if he can add "Kiss the kids" as a P.S., but Don tells him, "That's like clanging a cowbell at the end of Shostakovich's Seventh." "And that's good?" Tony asks. Smirking, Don says, "It's perfect."
In Macon, Georgia, Tony and Don walk down the street, when Don notices a suit in a store window. Seeing that Don likes it, Tony brings him into the store to try it on. When the shopkeeper realizes it's Don who wants to try it on, however, he tells Don that that will not be possible.
Analysis
The film, in addition to being a story about an unlikely friendship, is a travel movie, and a love letter to America. In one of his letters, Tony tells Dolores that he never knew how beautiful America until driving through it with Don. We see a montage of the duo driving through some beautiful places in that aquamarine car, and the film paints a romantic, adventuresome picture of the vastness and diversity of America. Against a backdrop of political tensions and troubles, the beauty of nature is one of the only comforts for the characters on their trip.
As we see more of the road trip, we also see that beneath the talent, genius, and hyper-confidence of Don Shirley lies a depressive bent. We first see this when Tony spots Don sitting on the balcony of his hotel, drinking whiskey alone. Then later, in his letter to Dolores, Tony tells her that he suspects Don is sad. The contrast between Tony and Don is not simply personality, but also in their attitudes towards life and their happiness. Tony, for all his hard knocks, is a generally happy man, while Don, with his wealth, fame, and cultural power, feels isolated and lonely.
Yet again stereotypes are thrown into relief in the scene where Tony stops at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. When it comes out that Don has never had fried chicken in his life, Tony cannot believe it, insistent that as a black man, Don is supposed to love fried chicken, grits, and collard greens. It comes as a surprise to Tony that Don does not fall into these stereotypical categories, and in a comic reversal, Tony is the one to introduce Don to something that he associates so inextricably with blackness.
As the men enter the South, they begin to see the effects of segregation, and Don's genius is considerably less respected. In Louisville, Don must stay at a beat-up motel that is only for black people, and he is berated by the other black men there, and then beaten up at a local bar not long after. In North Carolina, a group of well-to-do white people force Don to use an outhouse, in spite of enjoying his music-making. The South is not as amenable as the North, and with segregation comes higher tensions between the races. Still, Don maintains his composure, as evidenced by his closing remarks in Louisville: "Thank you for your warm hospitality."
One surprising fact that comes to light in this section of the film is the fact that Don opted to tour to the South of his own volition. After Tony wonders why Don endures such ill treatment form his Southern hosts, Oleg tells him that while Don could have done concerts in New York and made more money, he chose to come to the South, but does not provide an explanation. The implication is that Don came to the South because he wanted to take up space in the music world as a black man in a place where that is not so welcome as it is in the North. Oleg implies that Don wants to be an exception to the rule, to prove to people who do not already recognize it, that he is worthy of respect.
