Film review
Tom Hanks is perfectly cast in this real-life story about the power of kindness.
A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Directed by Marielle Heller.
Starring Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson and Chris Cooper.
For the record one more time – Tom Hanks is an international treasure. From Big and Forrest Gump to Cast Away and Captain Phillips and, of course, Woody in Toy Story, he never fails to engage, entertain and worm his way into our hearts. Now,
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, sees him playing one of America’s most loved children’s television hosts, Fred Rogers.
New Zealand audiences are unlikely to have the same instant connection to Fred Rogers, so it’s up to Hanks and his team to bring us into his world, and they do.
Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister, musician and puppeteer who hosted a preschool TV series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for over 30 years. It was not your usual silly kids’ slime-fest. Through his show Rogers explored the challenging parts of growing up, talking directly to his audience about their feelings and worries. Hanks feels perfectly cast as Rogers, in a story inspired by a real-life New York Times article titled “Can you say… hero?”
Welsh actor Matthew Rhys (The Americans/The Post) is jaded journalist Lloyd Vogel, weighed down by a core of suppressed resentment he’s been nurturing from childhood. His daddy issues rise to the surface when he becomes a father himself, and then he’s ordered by his editor to do a story on Fred Rogers. Having to do a “fluff piece” on a TV star enrages Vogel further but off he goes, notebook in hand, determined to peel back the happy feelgood layers of Fred Rogers in the desperate hope of finding a monster inside.
But the Fred Rogers we come to know through Hanks is essentially one of the kindest human beings you could ever find. So kind that, just like Vogel, we don’t believe he’s real. And like a fairy tale, it’s the journey which enlightens us.
Oscar-winner Chris Cooper (Adaptation/ American Beauty) is excellent as Vogel’s estranged father Jerry, and we watch
Rogers gently opening the door to Vogel’s pain. It’s here where it may dawn on audiences that we are essentially in a therapy session, and you’ll either be on board for this or you won’t. The film explores how we behave as human beings, how our experiences can emotionally scar us and may never heal unless we face them, and how kindness can be the key to unlocking happiness – your own and others’.
As an emotional experience, the film missed the mark a little for me. It’s not that it’s too heavy-handed, more that I didn’t feel a strong enough connection to Fred Rogers, despite a great performance from Hanks. The telling of it is perhaps where it stumbled for me, the notes of the narrative were too pedestrian in their delivery. But this is guaranteed to be one of those movies where each audience member will have their own individual response, probably based on their own lives. And I do love that.