Green Book is one of the most enjoyable and crowd-pleasing films this holiday season, even if it spends too much time with the driver.

The scene where Tony Lip meets Dr. Don Shirley in the mostly easygoing Green Book is telling in more ways than one. A sequence credited as “based on a real friendship,” it is the meeting between a prospective employee and employer, an Italian-American bruiser named Tony (Viggo Mortensen) and the immaculately measured Jazz musician, Don (Mahershala Ali), who lives atop a veritable castle in the sky—or at least in a luxury apartment above Carnegie Hall. His home reflects culture and prestige, yet other than a single manservant, it is empty, and not so much a part of the New York elite it towers above as it is an object hidden away from a distance. Like a fine piece of art, it can be admired without being touched.