A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019, PG)

I was interested in this movie, but not enough to see it before the nominations came out. However, my interest was piqued further when I found out that it was directed by Marielle Heller, who did Can You Ever Forgive Me? last year. Lucky for me, some of the Oscar movies came back to my local theater after the nominations were announced, and I got a chance to see this one.

Journalist Lloyd Vogel doesn’t know what to think when his editor tasks him with writing a profile on Mister Rogers. He makes it very clear that “that’s not the kind of thing” he writes, to no avail. He then sets out to uncover the “real” Mister Rogers, the cynicism and/or darkness behind what has to be the façade of his TV-persona gentle kindness, but Fred Rogers has an agenda of his own: to help the damaged Lloyd start to heal from some of his long-held trauma.

I’ve heard some complaining that nominating Tom Hanks for Best Supporting Actor is an instance of category fraud, but having seen the movie, I think it fits. He’s undeniably good as Fred Rogers, always nailing the man’s essence even if the details of the performance sometimes veer closer to impression than embodiment. That said, this definitely isn’t his story. It’s Lloyd’s, and Mister Rogers is the vehicle through which the film explores Lloyd’s lack of faith in humanity, his deep-rooted issues with his father, and his inability to deal with his emotions in a healthy way. It’s a pretty compelling story and probably a more dynamic one than a “Mister Rogers biopic” would’ve been.

There are some neat artistic touches in the movie. I like that its establishing shots are done on model towns and cityscapes, Mister Rogers-style recreations of, say, New York City with tiny little model cars moving jerkily across the Brooklyn Bridge. There’s also an interesting framing device and some really skillful interplay between scenes. While I still liked Can You Ever Forgive Me? better, this is a fine follow-up for Heller.

Since, like I said, this is Lloyd’s story, the movie’s finest quality is the dynamic between Matthew Rhys and Tom Hanks. Rhys’s Lloyd is the jaded skeptic who grows increasingly intent on validating his own belief that Fred Rogers can’t be “for real,” while Hanks’s Fred is a gentle soul who, at every turn, genuinely conveys that whoever he’s talking to is the most important person in the world to him at that moment. It’s not as simple as cynicism vs. innocence, because Fred has his own agenda too, even if it’s an altruistic one, and there are scenes where he’s almost sphinx-like in avoiding Lloyd’s attempts to take the conversation in a darker direction.

The rest of the cast performs their jobs well. I especially want to note Susan Kelechi Watson (I’m not familiar with her myself, but IMDb tells me she’s on This is Us,) who does a really nice job as Lloyd’s wife Andrea, and the film also features Chris Cooper and Enrico Colantoni (Keith Mars!)

Warnings

Drinking/smoking, brief violence, and thematic elements.