Review: A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
Cert: PG / 109 mins / Dir. Marielle Heller / Trailer



Arriving just in time for both awards season and the mood in which a vast swathe of audiences no doubt find themselves submerged, Marielle Heller's A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood is the tonic we'd forgotten we needed.

Focusing on near-legendary American children's TV presenter Fred Rogers, it's less of a biopic and more a musing on the cultural impact of his work over the decades. Played expertly by Tom Hanks with quiet and relentless patience and optimism, the film's story-proper takes place in 1998, following curmudgeonly journalist-in-crisis Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) as he's despatched by Esquire magazine to get a 400-word interview on the concept of modern-day heroes. Upon meeting Rogers, Vogel begins to be drawn into his well of calm, and begins to unpick the knotted threads of his own life.

And it's lovely. Ponderous in some places, outright surrealist in others Beautiful Day is no less sappy than you'd imagine but certainly darker than you'd expect. A parable for 2019, the film cuts through our cynicism like a knife while never forgetting how it was formed in the first place. Through Rogers, Heller reassures us that everything will be alright in the end, but there's work to be done to get there, and not everything matters as much as we think it does.

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood is likely to drift through the UK box office without creating too many ripples. Don't let it pass you by.

Wish I Was Here, Miles Ahead.



It is.
I'm very aware that the majority of UK audiences will be in the room because of Tom Hanks rather than knowing who Mr. Rogers is, but I assure you as someone who was in that exact camp that this is worth watching, even as an introduction to the man.



It is.



It's definitely 'up there'.
Although I'm not exactly a huge fan of Hanks, so...



That's possible.



There isn't.



Level 2: Chris Cooper is in this, and he was in 2012's Muppets movie along with Donald 'Calrissian' Glover.







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