A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
Cardigan angel…
OUT 31 JAN
For those who haven’t seen acclaimed 2018 doc Won’t You Be My Neighbor? or didn’t grow up Stateside with his lilting, gentle advice, Mr. Rogers may be at best a mystery and at worse, an irrelevance. But Can You Ever Forgive Me? director Marielle Heller expertly manages to satisfy both fans and the uninitiated with this warm, cosy hug of a film.
Based on Tom Junod’s 1998 Esquire cover feature (‘Can you say... hero?’ is worth a read), A Beautiful Day introduces us – via whimsical miniature sets
– to life-worn journalist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), whose estrangement from his boorish dad (Chris Cooper) is impacting his ability to process childhood trauma and be fully present for his own infant son. A born cynic who’d rather write war reportage than profiles, he hardly seems the best hack to send to interview the famously joyous and genial Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks) for Esquire’s Heroes issue.
But, like Lloyd, when we meet Hanks’ human definition of ‘nice’
– all soft cadence, twinkly eyes and hand-knitted sweaters – a sort of enchantment takes hold. How, Lloyd and the audience wonders, can a man be so delighted with the world? So patient? So kind? And in asking why there’s such suspicion of sincerity, we’re forced to question why we as a society default to scepticism.
As Mr. Rogers becomes a catalyst for Lloyd’s self-therapy and emotional healing, so Hanks’ zen performance engenders a communal meditative experience. That’s particularly true of a powerful scene in a busy diner where Fred entreats Lloyd to complete a self-acceptance exercise of closing his eyes for a minute and thinking of “all the people who loved you into existence”. As Lloyd complies, the diner falls silent and Hanks turns to gaze benignly down the lens, inviting viewers to do the same.
If that sort of touchy-feely stuff makes you uncomfortable, a lot of A Beautiful Day may land as cutesy and hokey, as merely a series of bumpersticker platitudes strung together with a daddy-issues narrative. There’s little in the way of exploration of what drives Mr R, save from an admittance to sometimes banging the keys of a piano in frustration. So if an explanation of the enigma is your goal, you might want to head in the direction of last year’s doc, which deals more in facts than feelings. But for those seeking comfort, kindness and a sense of cherishing in a turbulent world that seems to reward cruelty over caring,
A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood will be cinematic balm. Jane Crowther
THE VERDICT
A portrait of a small-screen saint sure to earn Hanks a shoal of awards nods. Surrender to it (and bring tissues).