“a beautiful day in the neighborhood” movie review

Having raved about Won’t You Be My Neighbor, the documentary which turned me into a Fred Rogers fan at the age of fiftysomething, my first reaction upon learning about A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was “Who needs another movie about Mr. Rogers?”

Well, apparently we all do.

This new feature stars a red-cardiganed Tom Hanks as the iconic children’s TV show host and, boy, if there was ever a specific celebrity meant for a specific role, this is it. Tom Hanks is our generation’s Mr. Rogers and I hope my husband was right when he turned to me in the middle of the movie and whispered, “This is his bid to become President.”

That would make me so happy, but I digress.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood takes a whole different approach to the story of Mr. Rogers. In fact, it’s so different that Tom Hanks is actually in the running for a Best Supporting Actor nomination (which he deserves to win) rather than Best Actor.

The main character in the movie is journalist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), who’s been assigned to write an Esquire magazine profile about Mr. Rogers. He approaches him as he does every one of his subjects — cynically and ready to attack. But this is Mr. Rogers, and the more time they spend together, the more he sees that he is not a character. He is the real deal.

Vogel — along with the audience — learns a great deal about kindness from Mr. Rogers, and it changes everything. Is it a little bit sappy? Sure, but in this age of incivility, I’ll take sappiness any day.

“We are trying to give children positive ways to deal with their feelings,” Mr. Rogers tells Vogel when they first meet.

What’s great about the (true) story this movie tells is that it gives adults positive ways to do that, too. If everyone could be taught empathy and learn how to deal with their anger and frustration constructively, imagine just how beautiful our neighborhoods could be.