A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
I watched some “Mr. Rogers’s Neighborhood” when I was growing up. Last year’s documentary, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” was a cathartic experience for me. Part of it was because of what I was going through, at the time, but it also was because of how unfailingly kind Fred Rogers was, and how he brought that into the lives of millions of people over the years. Did we need a dramatic film about him? Marielle Heller’s film is not only necessary in further exploring the impact of Fred Rogers, but also profoundly emotional in its own way.
The screenplay by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster is based on an article by Tom Junod about his time in doing a profile on Fred Rogers for an issue on heroes in society. In the film, Junod is Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), and he is a writer whose work is usually about bringing the cynical aspects out of life. That’s what is so surprising about him being asked about profiling Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks); he is ridiculously kind and good-hearted- why is Vogel the one who gets this assignment? Rogers senses something more about Vogel than he might see in himself.
I’m not going to lie- I needed this film at the time that I saw it. Like with when I finally watched “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” it came at a time in my life where I needed to see a film about kindness and empathy finding its way past an emotionally-hardened exterior. The way Heller brings this story to life in filled with narrative imagination, structuring the film almost like an episode of “Mr. Rogers’s Neighborhood,” with the transitions being done in a way that is reminiscent of how the show did. But this is a heavy film, and it’s most surprising that the film is more about Vogel, whose personal life is fraught with anxiety, with a new baby, and a fractured relationship with his father (Chris Cooper), than it is about Rogers. We get to know Fred in their interactions, and the interactions Vogel has with people closest to him, and Hanks is fantastic in embodying the compassion of Fred Rogers without deifying him. The chemistry between Hanks and Rhys is fantastic, and brings out the emotions of this film in a way that can get through even the toughest emotional exteriors, much like Fred Rogers is able to do here with Vogel. This is a great reminder of the importance of empathy in the world.
