A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood ★★★½
WATCHING Tom Hanks’ latest performance makes you feel inadequate,
Not only is Hanks seemingly the nicest bloke in Hollywood, the real-life character he plays in A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood even puts Hanks well and truly in the shade.
Prior to his death in 2003, Fred Rogers was an American television icon.
I must admit to not knowing anything about him prior to seeing the film, but for three decades, from 1968 to 2001, young Americans grew up with him.
Rogers started his career as a technician behind the scenes in television but, after being ordained as a Methodist Minister, he pitched a program idea that would see him give commonsense advice to a young audience whom he treated on their terms.
Through the use of human and puppet characters he created a cross between Play School and Behind The News but with an unique twist.
Mr Rogers did not shy away from talking to his audience about important issues and adult content like war, poverty and crime.
His aim was to strip away the complications and politics and deliver the basic messages that war, for example, is wrong and differences should be settled instead by talking.
Call him naive and simplistic if you want, but Mr Rogers truly saw and approached things as very much a simple choice of being kind and considerate of others.
I mean what do you say to a bloke who, when asked why he became a vegetarian, answers with sincerity: “I decided I couldn’t eat anything that had a mother.”
Director Marielle Heller wisely decides to make the focus of her film somebody other than Rogers, whom most of the audience can better identify with.
The script is adapted from an actual magazine article written by journalist Tom Junot who was sceptical of the Rogers’ persona and wanted to reveal the real man warts and all.
What Lloyd Vogel ends up doing is going on his own personal journey of discovery as a result of his meetings with Rogers.
The pairing of Matthew Rhys and Tom Hanks works particularly well. Heller is not afraid to make use of silences between the characters and both actors give themselves completely to these moments.
Rhys is best known for playing the lead in The Americans television series for six seasons but has recently had parts in The Post (2017) and The Report (2019). He has a quiet intensity that may earn him many plaudits if he gets the right role.
And what can you say about Hanks? He is the natural successor to James Stewart as the all-American hero and has played every part possible with aplomb.
It’s hard to believe now that he started in the 1980s with teen and romantic comedies like Bachelor Party and Splash before his break-out dramatic performance as an AIDS sufferer in 1993’s Philadelphia.
To cap things off perfectly, Rogers and Hanks are apparently sixth cousins in reality.
Best of the supporting cast is the ever-reliable Chris Cooper who plays Lloyd’s estranged father Jerry and is the catalyst for the emotional heart of the film.
Occasionally the film flirts with sentimentality but Heller, who gave us the excellent Can You Ever Forgive Me in 2018 and The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015), try their best in the face of a person whose kindness almost defied belief.
It’s the type of film we occasionally need these days – the equivalent of a big hug.