A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)
Directed by Marielle Heller
Sony Pictures Releasing, 109 minutes, PG
★★★★
Tomorrow is Election Day. Anxiety levels are at all-time highs. Need to chill? Here’s a film that will help you do it. In my lifetime, there have only been a handful of people I’d label as WYSIWYG authentic: Pete Seeger, the Dalai Lama, Bernie Sanders, and Fred Rogers. Of these, Rogers might be the only one on which most agree.
I dodged A Beautiful day in the Neighborhood in the cinema. I had just seen the 2018 documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor and didn’t think much more could be said. In a sense, that’s correct. Beautiful Day is not a Rogers biopic. Tom Hanks got nominations from various groups including the Oscars, for his portrayal of Rogers, but as a best supporting actor. Hanks was born for the role of Fred Rogers, one he inhabits with eerie ease, but his was indeed a supporting role. Rogers is not the film’s raison d’être.
Beautiful Day is based on a 1998 Esquire feature written by Tom Junod, whom the movie fictionalizes as Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys). Junod and Rogers really were friends, though liberties were taken with their relationship. Lloyd is presented as a man so consumed by anger and cynicism that not even his supportive wife Andrea (Susan Kelechi Wilson) or a newborn son can crack his funk. Imagine the hackles raised when Esquire editor Ellen (Christine Lahti) hands Vogel an assignment to write 400 words on Mr. Rogers for a spread on American heroes and makes it sound like she’s tired of his act and that he’d better not screw it up.
Lloyd has been mad ever since his father Jerry (Chris Cooper) left his wife as she was dying of cancer, the latest in a string of infidelities. Lloyd hasn’t spoken to him in 15 years, which doesn’t bode well when Jerry plans to show up at his daughter’s wedding. Lloyd wants to stay home on the grounds that Lorraine (Tammy Blanchard) has been married twice before, but Andrea convinces him he must go. Not the best idea! Lloyd ignores his father’s second wife, Dorothy (Wendy Makkena), and gets into a fight with his father that leaves Lloyd with cuts on his nose that are highly visible when he flies from New York to Pittsburgh to interview Rogers.
Vogel is prepared to give free rein to sarcasm, but he badly underestimates Rogers, his cheesy puppets, low-budget props, and silly characters like Lady Aselin and Mr. McFeeley. Each probing question prompts Fred to express concern for Lloyd’s well-being. Lloyd is sure this is part of Rogers’ shtick and wonders why Rogers doesn’t know he’s an investigative journalist who doesn’t do puff pieces. Imagine his surprise when Family Communications CEO Bill Isler (Enrico Colantoni) tells him that Fred has read his work and requested him for the interview. Lloyd is more baffled still when Rogers dismisses all talk of being a hero or a secular saint. A it transpires, Fred likes “broken people” wants to be Lloyd’s neighbor. Well take me to the river and wash me down! A whole lot of healing is about to happen. Vogel’s 400-words became 10,000 and the cover of Esquire.
Some of the movie falls into Hallmark TV, territory, but like Lloyd, I found myself being sucked in. Because. Mr. Rogers! He was so genuinely calm, honest, and concerned that one’s private Walls of Jericho crumble. Not everything went down as it’s portrayed on the screen, but Hollywood fiction doesn’t cheapen the fact that Fred Rogers was simply a decent human being.
Several other thoughts. My message to all Tom Hanks haters: Get over yourselves. He’s no Orson Welles, but he’s never tried to be. Hanks is what he appears to be: an actor who prefers uplifting roles to guns, hookers, and attitude. I liken Hanks to Starbucks coffee – not the greatest you’ll ever experience, but consistently reliable. A shout-out goes to Chris Cooper, who is one of the most under-appreciated actors of our times. He plays Jerry with the right balance of toughness and search for redemption. Susan Kelechi Wilson is radiant, even when we want her to be less understanding and kick Lloyd in the kiester. Maryann Plunket also does a nice job in her small part as Fred’s wife, Joanne.
Some reviewers criticized sequences of car trips, flights, and cityscapes that unfold as if they are sets from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood before toggling to reality. For me, they enhance the simple (though not simplistic) magic of the Mr. Rogers universe. I could have done without Hallmark moments that evoke 1950s family values tableaux. I am also critical that the film gives a drive-by to the fact that Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister. His faith was central to who he was.
Couldn’t we all do with a heaping serving of Fred Rogers right now? Bring it. You’ll grin despite yourself.
Rob Weir
Note: Noah Harpster appears in the film as Lorraine’s new husband, Todd. He also cowrote the script with Micah Fitzerman-Blue.
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