A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

How to explain the charm of Fred Rogers? Maybe "charm" isn't the word.  The man better known as Mr. Rogers was able to see through even the hardest of hearts, to see the good within.  A journalist named Tom Junod, notorious for his acidic, satiric pieces for Esquire magazine, was tasked with a profile on Rogers, not quite in his usual wheelhouse.   The gentle, yet complex TV host beloved by children and adults the world over, changed Junod's bleak worldview.  There's a movie there?

Yes, according to director Marielle Heller.  Her 2019 A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD adapts (via a screenplay by Noah Harpster and Micah Fitzerman-Blue) this lovely story into a mostly lovely film experience.  But it's hard not to agree with the chorus of critics - this would've been even lovelier if we just had a film about Mr. Rogers.  I can see a somewhat freeform look at a week in the life.  How he touches everyone.  No contrived plot, no "based on" real life screenplay.  It would've worked.  Heller, who also directed CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?, another real life adaptation, is very good at her job.  She has a very observant eye and knows how to inspire natural performances.  Her style would've suited a vignettes style movie, easily.

Junod is named "Lloyd Vogel" (Matthew Rhys), a rather unpleasant fellow who has some serious daddy issues.  He's never been able to forgive the lout for leaving his family while his mother suffered and died in a hospital.  At his sister's wedding, Lloyd ends up in a fistfight with papa.  Chris Cooper does a fine job as Jerry, a crude, bombastic alcoholic who seems to have gotten himself together enough to return to his family to make amends.  It is no surprise that we also learn Jerry is dying.  Lloyd is highly resistant at first, but as he meets with Fred Rogers, the kindly elder teaches him about forgiveness.  Can reconciliation be far behind? Will Loyd become a better husband and father? A better person overall?

It's all very nice.  The sort of thing one likes to see, in real life and fiction.  But Lloyd is so off putting that the film itself suffers at times.  We spend most of the running time watching him wrestle with his baggage.  But each visit with Rogers not only reveals not only a one of a kind spirit, but one who can cause even a cynical bloke like Lloyd to see through new eyes, and to remember he has a heart.  Hanks, whose performance of which I was initial skeptical, seems to have really tapped into Rogers' unique personality.  His scene while puppeteering is pure cinema magic.

And so was the decision to use miniatures between scenes: city skylines, cars, airplanes.  Appropriate, cute, and brilliant.  There is much joy in A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, even when saddled with a traditional redemption story.  Maybe the DVD/Blu-ray should've have an option to skip every scene without Mr. Rogers.