This was a film that had been on my radar as a possible Oscar contender, but when it didn’t get any nominations, it fell prey to the “so many nominees, so little time” conundrum. However, my mom 1) read the book it was based on and 2) really likes Tom Hanks, so when the film popped up on Netflix, she wanted to watch it with me.
Otto is a curmudgeon and a stickler. Recently forced into retirement, he spends every morning walking around his housing development to note which “idiots” aren’t properly displaying their parking permits, missorted the recyclables, or left the gate at the end of the street open. But when a young family full of affection and chaos moves in across the street, the kind but stubborn Marisol starts to worm her friendly way into his closed-off heart.
I liked this movie a lot, but I suppose that isn’t a surprise, since the story is highly reminiscent of virtually every Tom McCarthy movie: Sad/angry loner meets energetic/loving extrovert(s) who pull him out of his shell and brighten his life. In particular, it has a lot of parallels with Up, because Otto is mad at the world since the loss of his beloved, vibrant wife. It’s a familiar story format, but a good one when well-executed, and this film plays it wonderfully.
From the moment Marisol sticks her foot in Otto’s door when he tries to slam it in her face, I knew this was going to be good. She’s largely impervious to Otto’s crankiness, gently teasing him about his faults and constantly bringing over Tupperwares of food for him (cooking for people is one of her main love languages.) Rather than be intimidated by him, she begins from the assumption that, well, of course he’s going to lend them a ladder/help a neighbor with their radiator/tend to the stray cat that was stuck out in the cold. And no matter how many times Otto responds to her requests with an outright refusal, we see him begrudgingly giving in a minute later.
However, this isn’t solely about bright, happy Marisol being a whirlwind of goodness in grumpy Otto’s life. She makes the first and most repeated cracks in his defenses, but once he’s started to open up, other people start finding their way in. Marisol’s daughters, who call him “Abuelo Otto” almost as soon as they meet him. His neighbors Anita and Reuben, old-timers like him—they used to be close, but Otto has been clinging to a longstanding feud with Reuben. Malcolm, a former student of Otto’s late wife who remembers the difference she made in his life. Friendly neighbor Jimmy, who passes Otto on his daily rounds during his own morning power walks. Slowly, we see a community blossoming with Otto at the unlikely center of it.
Woven through the main story, we get flashbacks of Otto’s early years with his beloved Sonya. Again with the Up parallels, there are plenty of stories about a vibrant, charismatic woman who brightens up the life of a shy, stiff man—Otto describes Sonya as having been “the color” in his life. As with many of these stories, there is a slight whiff of Manic Pixie Dream Girl stuff going on here, and Sonya is generally framed as a character for Otto rather than one fully in her own right. She’s already dead when we meet her, and we only ever see her in flashbacks. And by the way, for nearly all of her screentime, we only ever see her when she’s young. There’s just one shot of her in more recent years, and there, she’s not even fully in the frame. I do take some issue with all this, along with some ableist framing within her story.
It takes a little bit to fully acclimate to Tom Hanks playing this mad-at-the-world character. It’s odd—even though he’s played plenty of short-tempered guys in his career, his overall Swell Guy persona can make you forget that, and every time, I have to do a mental adjustment when I see him playing someone more curmudgeonly like this. But Hanks is very good, and the journey Otto goes through is believable in his careful hands. Mariana Treviño is a delight as Marisol, going toe-to-toe with Hanks in all their scenes together as she fills the screen with warmth, humor, and care. I also really enjoy Juanita Jennings as Anita, Mack Bayda as Malcolm, and Cameron Britton as Jimmy. Additionally, the film features Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (from the Magnificent Seven remake) as Marisol’s “idiot” husband Tommy and Rachel Keller (Syd from Legion) as Sonya in the flashbacks, where she’s joined by Hanks’ son Truman as young Otto.
I do want to note that, while the film features a lot of casual inclusion, including a bilingual household and a trans actor playing a trans character, it also features two ablebodied actors playing wheelchair users.
Warnings
Strong thematic elements (including suicide) and language.
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