A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Last year’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? was my introduction to Marielle Heller, and you can consider me a fan after the one-two punch of that movie and this one. She brings an eye that is both resolved and empathetic to stories that could easily transition into treacle in anyone else’s hands. After all, a story beginning for empathy, forgiveness, and compassion is not exactly the stuff of dramaturgical pyrotechnics under most director’s all-seeing eye.

Despite opening the movie with his near uncanny valley approximation of St. Fred Rogers, Tom Hanks is not the main attraction of this movie but merely a benevolent guru here to offer his wary disciple a path forward. Meet Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a recent father who finds his new reality brushing against his deep-seated traumas and frozen in place. Vogel is a writer for Esquire and has a nasty habit of taking his subjects to task for perceived imperfections. This is when Fred Rogers enters his life.

The Rogers assignment was something forced upon him by his editor (Christine Lahti), but ends up being the thing that jostles him out of complacency and towards healing. Sure, the narrative heads down the exact path you think it’s going, but it’s a beautiful, touching journey towards that place. And Heller crafts a film that never takes the easy approach or a forgiving eye on its various characters. She makes them earn their redemption and reconciliation.

Vogel’s father (Chris Cooper) was an absentee alcoholic for much of his life and left behind a wake of damage. Now, with a cancer diagnosis barreling down him, he’s back in his son’s life asking for forgiveness and trying to make things right. Their union will eventually be mended but there will be explosions between here and there.

Rogers not only functions as a replacement fatherly figure but a peaceable teacher. Heller was wise to cast Hanks as his wholesome nice guy vibe folds itself into Rogers so invisibly that the two blurs in an instant. I was enchanted by him from the first frame on and cried more than once as he offered healing balm and benedictions.

Just as good is Rhys who seems born to play characters with a dyspeptic nature. His world-weary expression’s slow melting is presented through extreme emotional control and subtle shifts in his facial muscles. We believe in the spiritual awakening he’s gone through partially because Rhys has managed to invest us in his convert’s rehabilitation. That is the power of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, even as it occasionally tips towards the maudlin. Or maybe because of it, as Joanne Rogers (Maryann Plunkett) tells us there’s hard work at the center of Fred Rogers’ teachings and persona.