Neighborhood Watch

You've heard of "stunt casting," putting a hugely recognizable actor in a (usually small) role to generate buzz and bring gawkers out to see a movie. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood might transcend stunt casting to a degree where the casting is the entire raison d'être for the film: come watch one of America's most beloved actors, Tom Hanks, play one of America's most beloved TV personalities, Mister Rogers.

A synopsis of the film really need not say any more than that. But, briefly: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is the story of a magazine writer assigned to do a profile on Mister Rogers. With his hard-hitting background, he's determined to puncture the myth of the man and expose the sides Rogers doesn't want the cameras to see. Instead, Mister Rogers helps him face issues in his own life he's long been avoiding.

It hasn't been that long since we got a rather good documentary about Mister Rogers, so this movie needs to carve out its own path. It does that by actually being a movie about the writer, Lloyd Vogel (based on the real-life writer who actually wrote the article, Tom Junod). Fred Rogers is very much a secondary character in the story; if Tom Hanks receives another Oscar nomination for his work, it will be for Best Supporting Actor. It's a good narrative decision for this film to focus the story this way, showing the audience the type of supportive, nurturing guru Mister Rogers was by having him simply do that.

But the story of Vogel is pretty standard Hollywood fare. He has a long-standing feud with his father, the details of which feel filled in by a script-writing Madlib. It's not that the story feels like a re-hash of any one movie in particular, but it's a familiar jumble of parts that becomes engaging only occasionally. Playing the role, Matthew Rhys gets to ACT, yelling and crying, bottling things up and letting them leak out... but most of the time it feels pretty rote. It's not his fault, it's just a largely paint-by-numbers script.

Perhaps an even larger example of how familiar the movie feels is in the casting of Vogel's wife with Susan Kelechi Watson. Watson stars in This Is Us as Beth Pearson, where she has done exceptional and moving work for three-plus seasons now. It's exactly the sort of role she plays here, and the script here just doesn't feel as authentic or moving. You can't help but feel like this, she could do in her sleep.

And yet, the movie cannot be written off entirely. For one thing, the familiarity of it all never really descends into being "bad"; the movie never really feels cheesy, or fake. And more importantly, it does occasionally find its way into a truly great moment. The story is framed with the fun conceit of Mister Rogers presenting this story to the audience as an episode of his show, with exterior settings depicted in miniature (and the film in a 4:3 aspect ratio), just the way his TV show looked. Moments where you get the smallest hint of the inner mind of Mister Rogers are tantalizing and compelling.

In particular, one scene involves the most daring use of silence I've ever seen in any movie. I don't want to risk robbing the moment of its power, should you see the film, but I think I can say without spoiling much that everything goes literally silent (no sound effects, no score, no dialogue) for a literal minute. What happens in this minute is first uncomfortable, then clever, then profound. And a tremendous risk to attempt in this age of movie-going, where you can't know if some audience member's cough or cellphone might break the spell. It's far and away the strongest scene in the movie, and one I won't soon forget.

And if you are interested purely for the gimmick that is Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers, know that it is more than just a gimmick. Hanks channels the man so authentically that in short order, you truly do forget that you're seeing Tom Hanks and accept him as the genuine article. There is careful study to what he's doing here -- in his mimicry of Rogers' postures, gestures, and speech, you can tell Hanks really studied up for this performance. But the impressive aspect of it is how he doesn't let this artifice get in the way of behaving genuinely. This movie presents Rogers as someone who truly wanted to connect with each and every person who came into his life, and Hanks' performance is at every turn about forging a real connection with every actor he works with (of all ages).

Overall, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is worth seeing. Indeed, if it was operating throughout at the level it attains in, say, its most effective 15 minutes, it would easily be one of the best movies of the year. As it stands, I'd call it a B. If you were a fan of the real Mister Rogers, or are a fan of Tom Hanks, it's probably worth going to see in the theater. Otherwise, it might be one to put on the list to watch at home later.