“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” Movie Review

    I never really grew up watching “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” a lot as a kid but I was familiar with the show and I did catch it occasionally.  Still, anything with Tom Hanks automatically gets my attention and Mr. Rogers was a very culturally important figure so “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” was a must for me to see.

    The movie tells the story of Lloyd Vogel, a cynical investigative journalist for Esquire magazine, who gets assigned a job to do a fluff piece on children’s show host Mr. Rogers as a part of the magazine’s heroes issue.  Lloyd is having personal issues with his father when he is tasked to interview Fred Rogers and refuses to believe someone could really be as good as Fred Rogers seems and seeks to prove he is as flawed as everyone else.  During the process of interviewing Mr. Rogers, Lloyd ends up learning more from the children’s host than he ever thought he would.

    The film surprised me because I assumed the film would be more focused on the character of Mr. Rogers but it instead focused on Lloyd Vogel.  The film uses the character of Fred Rogers as more of a mentor figure to Lloyd.  I was just shocked that Tom Hanks wasn’t given as much screen time as possible.  With that being said, Tom Hanks is still very much one of the leads and is very effective in the film.

    Tom Hanks once again delivers an incredible performance that will be hard for voters to ignore come award season.  Hanks’ Fred Rogers is compassionate and flawed but embraces his imperfections and learns from them.  When dealing with a figure like Mr. Rogers, it’s hard to imagine anyone but Tom Hanks being able to pull him off.  Matthew Rhys was also stellar as Lloyd Vogel which is a sigh of relief since the movie relies primarily on their performances alone.

    I found the production design of the film whimsical and I liked how they managed to make the movie feel strangely like it was set in “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood”.  In fact, the filmmakers use the old children’s show as a framing device for the events of the movie in a really inventive way.

    I really enjoyed the film and felt the film delivered some heavy and powerful messages that no one is too young, or too old, to learn.  Sometimes we just have to let our guards down and let people in.  This movie is definitely a nice look back at our childhoods and teaches us that some lessons are timeless.

Grade: B+