By On Sunday night Green Book defied the odds to take home three Golden Globes, winning in the 'Best Screenplay', 'Best Musical or Comedy film' and 'Best Actor' categories, the latter for Mahershala Ali's performance.
The film retells the story of a tour of the deep south Jamaican-American pianist Don Shirley (Ali) took with his driver, former bouncer Tony 'Lip (Viggo Mortensen) in the 1960s. The film has oscillated between huge award success - such as the prestigious People's Choice award at Toronto film festival - and a series of escalating scandals and backlashes.
The hope that the Golden Globes wins might quieten - or at least distract from - the drama surrounding the film have been dashed after anti-Muslim tweets from screenwriter Nick Vallelonga surfaced online.
“@realDonaldTrump 100% correct,” the tweet from November 2015 read. “Muslims in Jersey City cheering when towers went down. I saw it, as you did, possibly on local CBS news.”
His comments are in response to a rally Trump held on his campaign trail that month where he said he had “watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.”
The reaction to Vallelonga's comments been particularly damning given that Green Book claims to expose the ugly racism in America and that lead actor Mahershala Ali is a Muslim.
Nick, the son of bouncer turned driver Tony “Lip” Vallelonga who Viggo Mortensen plays in Green Book, has already been the subject of criticism after the family of pianist Don Shirley claimed the film was wildly inaccurate.
At the Toronto Film Festival, Nick Vallelonga said he interviewed Shirley beforehand but his family have spoken out about the film, taking issue with everything from the colour of his car to the depiction of his estrangement from his family, which they say is false.
This comes after an initial backlash from the film's tone as treating racism as something that can be tempered by a buddy road trip with a white saviour figure.
With six weeks to go until the Academy Awards, who knows what else might come to light.
