A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is a film that is based on the true story of journalist Tom Junod. However, Tom requested that producers to give him a pseudonym in the film and is renamed, Lloyd Vogel.
The film is directed Marielle Heller known for her work on Diary of a Teenage Girl and Can You Ever Forgive Me? Films of which I haven’t seen but will surely check out having seen the talent she has when it comes to film making. Until now I only knew her as Jorma Taccone’s (of The Lonely Island fame) wife I had no idea she had a spotlight of her own and she shines with this feature.
The film is shot in a unique way as when the film shows recreated footage from Mr Rogers show the crew opted to shoot it in the same aspect ratio of 4:3. Going that extra mile to make the show look like it fit the time period which was 1998 and made what we were watching that little more believable.
Having grown up in the UK I was not familiar with Mr Rogers show. I knew who Fred Rogers was but never saw the show so I went into this show pretty blind not knowing anything other than he was a ‘pretty nice guy’.
The film does an incredible job of showing the passionate nature of Fred Rogers and introducing an entertaining and moving story to new fans and passionate fans alike. I found myself incredibly moved by the story of Lloyd and his relationship with Fred Rogers which was fronted by a great performance from Matthew Rhys as Lloyd and Tom Hanks a Fred Rogers the chemistry these guys have is phenomenal. I felt like I was watching a father or father figure talking to his son it was so comforting to see a broken man (Lloyd) slowly overcome his problems through his unlikely friendship with Mr Rogers as I could resonate with Lloyd because I know how helpful and calming it is when you’re going through a tough spot and someone is there for you to talk to.
On the topic of Matthew Rhys, this guy is so great in this film and I haven’t seen him in the spotlight but after this performance, I can see this guy is going to be a front runner for a leading man in upcoming films in the future – I just know it. He effortlessly swings from emotion to emotion with a performance better than most high profile actors working today and gives the film the low and depressing themes that work so well in unison with Hanks uplifting and joyful performance as Fred Rogers. The supporting cast is also great in this movie but are wisley sidelined until they are needed and work well in the scenes and don’t feel like they are compacted in for the sake of drama because the themes that their characters are given impact Rhy’s character so well.
The film is not only great to look and has great performances it’s also really informative of the story of this relationship and the actual life and character of Fred Rogers. As his wife says “He isn’t a perfect man you know” but the film wisley portrays him like that until the very end. He has a conversation with Lloyd early on in the film about how he comforts himself and deals with this “huge burden” of helping everyone he meets Fred then says he does things like swimming or the important one “You can play all the lowest keys on a piano at the same time” and continues to interrupt Lloyds questions with “Bwwwwong” (his impression of a Piano) and in the closing shot, he starts to play a tune on the piano but just like a normal imperfect human he presses a wrong key. This is then followed by a short pause to him bashing the lowest notes of the piano, to then continuing to retry and succeed in playing the song. This is a very minimal shot and has no dialogue and the shot is all silhouetted but it tells such a huge story just from his small little tantrum it shows us that Fred Rogers isn’t the perfect person he is in fact human and may have problems of his own to face that he keeps from the spotlight and may parallel Lloyds life more than the film shows us and that’s why he is so determined to have Lloyd as his friend…they are similar character even if the narrative doesn’t explicitly show it.
Final Score.
Title:Incredible
A beautiful day in the neighbourhood is an amazing film all across the board ticking all the boxes I expect to see in a film of this genre. I hope that people in the UK take the time out to go and see it even if they are not familiar with the source material as it has such an uplifting message that may help people in a similar mindset as Lloyd’s. It’s not just a beautiful day in the neighbourhood it’s a beautiful day for cinema.
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