Three stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang
This is so not the movie most folks likely are expecting.
Not even 10 minutes in, it feels like we’ve stumbled into the Twilight Zone.
 |
| When cynical journalist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys, right) arrives at the Pittsburgh studio where Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is filmed, he's surprised to be greeted effusively by Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks), as if they were longtime friends. |
A couple of clues signal this not-quite-rightness. The film’s aspect ratio is 4:3, as with old television set images (as opposed to any sort of wide-screen format). The visuals appear slightly out of focus, as if we’re watching a VHS tape; director of photography Jody Lee Lipes has re-created 20-year-old television-style cinematography. The result seems “blurry” because we’ve become so accustomed to pristine HD camerawork.
Lipes pans slowly over the familiar, scale-model neighborhood set, complete with toy vehicles — notably the Neighborhood Trolley — moving jerkily among the rows of houses, in the low-budget, pre-CGI fashion. The gentle, equally memorable piano melody rises — Nate Heller’s soundtrack sublimely mimicking the iconic Johnny Costa, whose improvised keyboard work was such an integral part of the show — and Mr. Rogers (Tom Hanks) enters in ritual fashion.
The jacket comes off, replaced by a red cardigan: zipped all the way up — and then halfway down — with a snap. He sits; the formal shoes yield to canvas boat sneakers. All the while, he softly croons the iconic opening song — “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” — without ever losing that gentle, inviting smile.
The replication is almost spooky: the stance, the voice, the welcoming expression. More than that, the aura that always radiated from Fred Rogers. The latter must’ve been a challenge: Either that, or Hanks has discovered a way to channel the dear departed.
Right about now, we wonder: Where the heck are we going?
At which point, the merely puzzling sails into the positively weird.
Mr. Rogers shares a picture-board, opening each of the little doors to reveal a photograph beneath. Some are familiar, as with the puppet King Friday the 13th. But the next door conceals a head shot — practically a police booking photo — of Mr. Rogers’ “good friend,” Lloyd Vogel. He looks quite worse for wear, with a black eye and bloodied nose.
Mr. Rogers softly laments the plight of those consumed by anger, unable to forgive the trespasses of others. Whereupon we slide into Lloyd’s life, to witness the events that brought him to this sorry state.
And the penny finally drops: We really are in The Twilight Zone, in the sense of embarking on a morality play with a message ultimately served up by Rod Serling.
Director Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood doesn’t come within shouting distance of being a biography of Fred Rogers. We already got that film, via last year’s marvelous documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
No, Heller’s little parable is a “typical” episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood … but for adults. As such, Hanks’ Fred Rogers is but a supporting character in an instructive melodrama centered on the badly damaged Lloyd. Not the facial wounds, which are merely superficial, but the much deeper emotional damage.
Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster’s script is inspired by Tom Junod’s “Can You Say … Hero?,” the lengthy feature article that became the cover story of Esquire magazine’s November 1998 issue. Although numerous events depicted in that profile make their way into this film — a spontaneous subway encounter is particularly enchanting — Lloyd Vogel isn’t intended to be Tom Junod, not by any stretch.
No, Lloyd (Matthew Rhys) is a wholly fictitious individual concocted to give this film’s Mr. Rogers an opportunity to work his patient, perceptive magic on a set of adults. It’s an audacious premise, fraught with peril from numerous directions. Unwary parents bringing children to this film will be aghast by what they’ll view as an tactless bait-and-switch; cynical patrons will check out just as quickly, dismissing this as a puerile contrivance.
I can’t argue with the latter view.
Lloyd, a New York-based Esquire journalist with a reputation for burning his interview subjects, is assigned by his editor, Ellen (Christine Lahti), to do a 400-word mini-profile on Pittsburgh-based Fred Rogers, for an upcoming issue themed around “heroes.” Lloyd views the task as beneath him; Ellen pulls rank and makes it an order.
Their New York setting is introduced via the Mr. Rogers-style of miniature models of the Manhattan skyline — lovingly created by production designer Jade Healy — defined by familiar highlights such as the Chrysler Building, the George Washington Bridge and the Twin Towers. (This is 1998, remember.)
At home, the workaholic Lloyd is almost a stranger to his patient wife, Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson), and their newborn son. The crisis hits when they attend his sister Lorraine’s (Tammy Blanchard) wedding; the years-estranged Jerry (Chris Cooper) has unexpectedly turned up, to walk his daughter down the aisle. Long-nurtured hostility combusts, and blows are exchanged; Lloyd winds up with the face on Mr. Rogers’ photo board.
Refusing to hang around and justify his behavior — failing to recognize the signs that imperil his marriage — Lloyd flies to Pittsburgh, for what he expects will be a fleeting, boring and pointless encounter. This trip takes place in a darling toy plane, clearly manipulated via wires, which bumps clumsily on the arrival runway.
From the beginning, things don’t go as expected. What Lloyd doesn’t know is that Fred Rogers has long cultivated a talent for turning an interview on the interviewer, via a guileless form of conversational jujitsu.
As meticulously detailed in Junod’s actual Esquire piece, Fred Rogers always was more interested in the people he met, than they with him … even though it never seemedthat way. The subtle grace of Hanks’ performance is the way his crinkling eyes tease, cajole and challenge Lloyd into baring his own soul.
It’s by no means a quick process, and Rhys maintains a credible air of skepticism, cynicism, doubt, contempt and outright denial. Really, how could anybody be so sincere and beatific? Lesser men would give Lloyd up as a lost cause, but Fred Rogers isn’t lesser men.
More to the point — and this is the film’s point, just as it was Rogers’ guiding influence — he gets just as much from Lloyd, damaged as he is, as he hopes to give in return.
Do we buy it? We’re certainly supposed to; it’s the very foundation of Fitzerman-Blue and Harpster’s script. The film poster leaves little doubt: “We could all use a little kindness,” and boy, that’s certainly true these days.
Whether that message resonates here, though, will depend on the individual viewer. The delivery system is clumsy, to say the least. And the core story is trite.
Rhys is thoroughly believable as a burned-out journalist whose personal baggage has tainted his professional career; his gaze is haunted by bad memories, and he has the haggard look of a man who hasn’t slept well for years. The always reliable Cooper is equally persuasive as a desperate man attempting to atone for past sins.
Watson’s Andrea is harder to fathom. Her performance is solid, but we cannot imagine why such an intelligent, sensitive woman would have put up with Lloyd for the eight years they’ve been married. There’s no indication he once was a kinder, more considerate person; how would she even have endured their first date?
Enrico Colantoni does marvelous things in his few appearances as Bill Isler, longtime president and CEO of The Fred Rogers Company, and one of Rogers’ fiercest protectors. Granted little more than minimal dialogue and his mischievous smile, Colantoni is sublime.
No question, Heller has orchestrated an environment and mood that faithfully re-create the Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood vibe to an impressive, even astonishing degree. We can’t help being drawn into this comfortable, nurturing tableau, just as we can’t help being mesmerized by Hanks’ performance.
But it’s all merely backdrop to a moralistic melodrama that isn’t nearly as successful, and certainly not as persuasive.
This is a game effort, by all concerned. But the result, alas, is unsatisfying.
No comments:
Post a Comment