Hanks’ Mr Rogers captures heart
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (PG, 109 mins)
Directed by Marielle Heller Reviewed by James Croot ★★★★
Some interviews leave a lasting impression. I still distinctly remember talking Thanksgiving with Martin Sheen as he prepared to host the family, chatting about teenage crushes with Winona Ryder, and getting parenting advice from a sweary Kate Winslet.
But, I have to admit, I’ve never had a celebrity discussion as lifechanging as Lloyd Vogel’s (Matthew Rhys) in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
A winner at the 1997 National Magazine Awards, Vogel firmly believes in using his ‘‘front row seat to history’’ to ‘‘expose truths’’ and ‘‘changing a broken world with our worlds’’.
So the investigative journalist is less than impressed when, for his latest Esquire assignment, he’s asked to fly to Pittsburgh for a ‘‘puff piece’’ on ‘‘hokey kids’ show guy’’ Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks).
It’s for an upcoming issue on American heroes and, before Vogel can protest, his editor confirms that Rogers was the only one on their wishlist willing to talk to him.
‘‘People love talking to me,’’ Vogel whines.
‘‘That’s until they read what you wrote,’’ comes the pithy reply.
Not improving his mood is the news that his estranged father (Chris Cooper) is attending his sister’s third wedding. And, although he tries his best not to get riled, things end in a contretemps, a bloodied nose and a black eye.
So it’s a somewhat distracted Vogel who steps onto the WQED set of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, hoping that he might just be able to find a chink in the armour of its effusive host Fred McFeely Rogers.
But despite warnings from his wife (This is Us’ Susan Kelechi Watson) not to ruin her childhood, even Vogel isn’t prepared for what he is about to encounter.
Let’s get one thing out of the way first, Neighborhood is not a biopic of the much-loved, Ned Flandersesque
Rogers. If you want that story, try Morgan Neville’s excellent 2018 documentary Won’t
You Be My Neighbor?
Instead, director Marielle Heller’s (The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Can You Ever Forgive Me?) dramedy is more about the impact Rogers had on one man.
Inspired by Esquire journalist’s Tom Junod’s encounters with him for his Can You Say...Hero? article, Heller and screenwriting duo Noah Harpster and Micah FitzermanBlue (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Transparent) weave a darkly comic, occasionally surreal and surprisingly emotional tale.
With the whole movie presented like an episode of Neighborhood, animated segues and Forrest
Gump-esque insertions into historical footage, it feels like a cross between a Cameron Crowepaean to magazine journalism and a Spike Jonze mindbender.
That said, Heller deserves plenty of kudos. This could have been cloyingly twee and sappily sentimental, instead it is heartwarming and endearing.
That’s also down to the combination of two terrific performances. Rhys (The
Americans) delivers precisely the right dose of world-weary cynicism, while Hanks perfectly captures the quiet intensity and cadence of the seemingly unflappable Rogers.
It’s hard not to be drawn in by his words and into his world of positivity and ‘‘neighbourhood of make believe’’.