Review of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) by Rfriend — 02 Dec 2019

There's no tongue-in-cheek to be found in this simple gem. A simple story about anger and redemption could have been maudlin, cloying. But in the hands of Marielle Heller, director and Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, writers, it was genuine and heartfelt. My God, there were moments when the audience (capacity crowd) went totally silent. You know, pin-drop silence. The character Mr. Rogers drove straight through to the heart with his simple truisms about personal emotions, directed toward the second main character Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys.) And it was totally real and believable. It surely affected me! I myself am dealing with anger, and hearing Mr. Rogers with his simplistic but penetrating truths, rang true for me. Another interesting detail - at one point in the movie, Mr. Rogers said to Lloyd, while seated in a restaurant: "Let's have one minute of silence.". And, atypical of movie productions, which never show events in real time, the minute went on for exactly one minute. I counted seconds to see if it would be one minute, and it was. (And this was another point in the movie, where the audience was completely silent for that minute.) Cool! I love those moments, when I feel at one with the people in the audience, although I suppose that most people are not aware of it. But that's why I choose to watch movies in theaters where are many other people, rather than at home. People I'll never talk to, but whom I don't need to talk to.

Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers - I guess he would seem a natural for the role, being a pleasant, endearing guy with a positive approach to life. But in this role, he seemed a little out of his realm, curiously enough. He seemed slightly awkward in the first half hour of the movie. But then, he seemed to absorb the role and make it his own in the second half. That made the movie easy to sink into.

The portrayal of the TV show of Mr. Rogers was authentic, complete with piano and bells accompanying Rogers words as he spoke. It even had the piano improvising, as in the TV show.

I say, watching A Beautiful Day in Your Neighborhood would be time well spent.