A beautiful day in the neighbourhood (2019) ****

Source: Imdb

I went into this drama about a children’s TV host and his new friend expecting a feel-good movie, even though I was doubtful that they would be able to create any kind of tension arc from this material, but they did and the only word I can think of to describe this film is “beautiful”. Sure, there are some heavy cliches at play (e.g. anything about the family feud), but they sort of balance the weirdly anti-cliche nature of their main star (e.g. the apparent lack of ulterior motives). Tom Hanks gave a heart-warming, earnest and genuine performance as the empathic hero of this film, Fred Rogers. It was a joy to see him handle this character with skill and respect for both him and his audience. Though I was not familiar with Mr. Rogers until I saw this movie, I get the feeling that Hanks stayed very close to the actual person with his performance and that he really enjoyed playing someone with no obvious shadows to their character. Particularly the scene where Fred first greets Lloyd made me cry a bit. It’s incredible to see a person be so positive and so accepting towards this guy who is used to having to defend himself using his elbows. I wish there were more people like this. It was beautiful to see a friendship grow simply because one person accepted another as they are and made an effort to help them realise their own unconditional worth.
The rest of the cast was decent, but not that great. There was very little score, and most of the actors were just not good enough to cope with the demand of having to fill a scene all by themselves. Still, they played their roles well and the scenes with Mr. Rogers would not have worked without their contributions.
The directing on this one was not too remarkable, and I found their choice of changing screen formats totally weird. I see what they were trying to do, but it just doesn’t work for me. Other than that, this project did not seem to require a lot of technical finesse. It seemed pretty straight-forward, which means it all rests on the shoulders of the actors, particularly Tom Hanks and he managed to truly inhabit his character, so kudos to him.
I’ll say it again: a beautiful film, thought-provoking and surprisingly captivating. 4/5

A beautiful day in the neighbourhood on Imdb