My American ignorance continues! Just like Fox News in Bombshell, I didn’t grow up with Mister Rogers Neighbourhood – I had George and Benita on Play School. I had The Wiggles and Monica’s House. I also never saw Won’t You Be My Neighbour?; a highly rated documentary on Mr. Rogers that came out in 2018. I did see Mr. T vs. Mr. Rogers on Epic Rap Battles of History though, if that counts for anything 😊. And from what I’ve gleaned from glimpses of Mr. Rogers talking to congress and appearing on The Arsenio Hall Show, he seems like a downright decent upstanding gentleman.
Tom Hanks takes on Fred Rogers in Marielle Heller’s film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood. Esquire columnist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) plans to interview Rogers for an article on American heroes and gets more than he bargained for when Mr. Rogers wants to delve into his personal life, and ask some questions of his own in return. Lloyd has anger, regarding his father abandoning him and his sister while they were young, and just having had a baby himself, Lloyd is forced to reflect on his attitude, and what it means to be a father. A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood is based on true events and re-enacts portions from Mr. Rogers television show, Mister Rogers Neighbourhood.
It took me a while to decide on why the film was using transitions from Mister Rogers Neighbourhood’s toy city in their original format. The movie kept changing aspect ratios between scenes, and it was distracting. Couldn’t the movie just show the toy city in widescreen to make it smooth? I concluded the original format keeps the magic of the television show intact – Mister Rogers Neighbourhood seems like it was a pretty important and influential show for children, where Mr. Rogers would cautiously explore deeply human issues like anger, death and war. Sounds heavy, but profound. This movie is equally heavy and gave me the image of a bowling ball sinking down a trampoline. As Lloyd threatens to pick apart Rogers for his magazine, he becomes increasingly unstable. As Mr. Rogers says, things that are ‘mentionable are manageable’ and Lloyd has emotions he needs to get off his chest that are weighing him down. I wasn’t a fan of the A Christmas Carol style fever dream that convinces Lloyd to address his problems, but that’s about the only scene that doesn’t work for me. Tom Hanks, as Mr. Rogers, even glares at the camera in one moment to drive home a psychological point, that is a thousand times more effective than Judi Dench in Cats.
I can’t recall ever coming across Matthew Rhys before, but he seems to be the right choice for the message this movie is trying to get across. Lloyd is a man from a callous real world when he first enters the child-friendly fantasy Mr. Rogers works hard to create. It is established that Lloyd is prone to angry outbursts and there are moments when you wonder if Lloyd is about to sock Mr. Rogers during interviews; Rogers can be wily and deflective, which creates great tension. This movie is set in the nineties, and Lloyd looks like he could be an international terrorist from that era of movies; he’s got a cut on his nose, stubble and scruffy hair, and a grey jacket like a Wet Bandit. Although he is a family man, he’s gritty, opposing Rogers. Lloyd is aggressively apathetic with some of the questions he asks of Mr. Rogers, and Rogers does well to subvert what he finds too obtuse to answer.
It also took me a little while to warm to Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers, but by the end, who else could have played him? Well, Jimmy Stewart maybe, back in the day. Tom Hanks is America’s Daddy of cinema and so, without even looking like Mr. Rogers, Tom Hanks is the perfect candidate. By the moment we see Hanks interacting with the sick boy on set, he shows a clear dedication and warmth that makes him sweet as a children’s entertainer. I was worried this movie was creating a Saint-like depiction of Mr. Rogers, despite his wife character expressing that to liken Rogers to a saint is to say his manner of calm behaviour is unobtainable, but this movie literally gained another half-star off me by showing Mr. Rogers slam the piano in the final moments, to portray his human tendencies. Hanks continues his work from Forrest Gump too, being superimposed into scenes throughout history, this time appearing as Mr. Rogers on Arsenio Hall and Oprah.
I love Chris Cooper; it was great to see him in a small capacity in Little Women, but he plays the part of Lloyd’s father most competently here. A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood seems to extract the main purpose of Mister Rogers Neighbourhood – to educate, and urge young minds to make sense of the world – and extend it into a two-hour movie. Mr. Rogers is said to be attracted to damaged people; he sees beyond their problems and talks to the innocent child within. At times, it’s uncomfortable, like sitting in on someone else’s therapy session; shout out to all those who lost a loved one at an early age or had a guardian abandon you, I can only sympathise. Mr. Rogers believes navigating adult problems with kids helps them cope with adult problems when they’re adult. This movie isn’t shiny enough to be a classic, but it would make an expertly impactful midday movie. I quite enjoyed my exploration around Mr. Rogers neighbourhood.
4.0
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