Review: "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"

If you’re expecting a biopic of Fred Rogers, then “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is not it.

You will leave the theater not knowing much more about Rogers than you did going in, assuming you watched the iconic “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” show as a child, or even just saw the solid documentary about him from last year, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

No, this is more movie-making as therapy. Director Marielle Heller (“Can You Ever Forgive Me?”) and screenwriters Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster are aiming to summon Rogers’ spirit and spread his ethos, that each and every person is precious, across the globe.

Tom Hanks gives a superlative performance that makes a conscious choice not to do an impersonation of Rogers. Physically there’s not much resemblance, and Hanks eschews that reedy little country priest voice Rogers used to speak to generations of children over the decades his show was on PBS.

Rogers isn’t even the protagonist in his own movie, that role being delegated to Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), the journalist charged with profiling him circa 1998. It’s a fairly common trope for modern movies to include a storyteller character as a stand-in for the audience, asking the questions they’d like to ask and acting as an avatar for their emotional reactions.

But in this case, Lloyd isn’t just telling Rogers’ story; he’s the receptacle of his ministrations. This is a movie about a writer who had his life changed by the person he was writing about. If this film were a sentence, Lloyd is the subject and Rogers is the object.

Essentially, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is an extended cinematic group session. We are collectively blessed by Mr. Rogers to accept his wisdom, go forth and be neighborly.

This isn’t necessarily meant as criticism, though I suspect I didn’t love “Neighborhood” as much as most people will. This is the ultimate laughter-and-tears sort of filmmaking that tends to be very successful at the box office and during the awards season.

It’s just that this is the kind of movie that sets out to do a certain thing, and it does that thing very well, and people will leave it grateful for the thing they were expecting it to do. I felt fulfilled and utterly unsurprised.

Lloyd works at Esquire magazine as an investigative reporter. Professionally he’s riding high but has earned a reputation as a hard-to-get-along jerk; personally he is married and recently became a father late in life. Susan Kelechi Watson plays his wife, Andrea, who deeply loves Lloyd but also recognizes in him fault lines, a physical and emotional absence, that could threaten their nascent family’s stability.

Lloyd is assigned to write a 400-word piece on Rogers for the magazine’s issue on heroes, which is the sort of thing a newspaper reporter would be expected to crank out in half a day but here becomes a weeks-long odyssey with multiple trips to Pittsburgh to interview Rogers.

Rogers instantly treats him with kindness and familiarity, turning the conversation around to focus on the journalist rather than the interviewee. It seems most of Lloyd’s trauma involves Jerry (Chris Cooper), his father, though Lloyd stubbornly refuses to use this label. Jerry ran out on the family a long time ago and now seeks some kind of reconciliation.

The background is filled with many lovely bit parts. I especially liked Christine Lahti as Lloyd’s supportive-yet-demanding editor; Wendy Makkena as Dorothy, Jerry’s girlfriend who helped him put the pieces back together; and Enrico Colantoni as Bill, the right-hand man who’s always at Rogers’ side, part gofer and part watchdog.

I found interesting the film’s depiction of the production of Rogers’ show, which is like a carefully oiled machine of well-worn parts. The Pittsburgh crew is old-timers who love Fred while also being slightly exasperated by his ambling, schedule-be-damned ways. They know they’re not breaking any new ground but are focused on doing what they do as well as it can be done.

Much the same can be said of “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”

I admit part of my reaction may be colored by the TV show itself, which ran from 1968 to 2001 (with a short, unremembered break in the ‘70s.) Though it’s now sacrilege to say such things, the truth is that, even as a small child who most needed to hear the message of self-love that Mr. Rogers spun so earnestly, I found his show terribly boring.

I know, I know…

A Generation X-er saying you didn’t like “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” is like being a Baby Boomer who found Woodstock to be just a concert, or the Beatles a great band but a trifle overrated. (Stage whisper: both are true.)

So you can hate me, and love this movie, but I will remain deeply in like with you both.

Video review: "Rabbit Hole"

"Rabbit Hole" is the sort of movie that's made for video. What the studios call a "prestige" picture, it didn't get much of a theatrical release and barely cracked the $2 million threshold at the box office. But it's the sort of film that grownups will settle in to watch in the comfort of their homes, where they can appreciate its subtle charms.

Nicole Kidman deservedly received an Oscar nomination for her role as Becca, a brittle woman struggling to deal with the death of her young child. Aaron Eckhart as her husband Howie and Diane Wiest as Becca's mother, though, failed to receive the recognition from the Academy Awards they should have.

Based on the play by David Lindsay-Abaire (who also wrote the screenplay), "Rabbit Hole" is about how people internalize a tragedy, dealing in the best way they can without realizing that swallowing all that pain inevitably erodes the soul.

Becca's anger resides on the surface, as she lashes out as others as a way to rein in her guilt. Howie seems more put-together and stable, but there's a cauldron of bile underneath ready to ooze out the cracks in his facade.

Wiest is a knockout as a blue-collar church-goer struggling to comprehend the person her daughter has become. Strong supporting performances also come from Sandra Oh as the empathetic leader of a support group for grieving parents, and Miles Teller as the introspective teen whose fate becomes intertwined with Becca and Howie's.

Director John Cameron Mitchell brings a steady hand, letting his cast plumb deeply without a single moment where they play to the cameras. We feel like we're peeking in through a window on a set of real lives unfolding, and if were to step away that world would continue evolving whether we were there to witness it or not.

Video extras are the same, whether you opt for the DVD or Blu-ray edition.

Several deleted/extended scenes are included, plus a feature-length commentary track by Mitchell, Lindsay-Abaire and director of photography Frank G. DeMarco. It's a welcome feature, but in a film that relied so heavily on the performances of its actors, to not include any of them in the commentary seems odd.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 2.5 stars

Review: "Rabbit Hole"

"Rabbit Hole" is a film that's steeped in sorrow, but watching it is a joyful experience -- at least for those who appreciate finely-drawn characters from fabulous actors who invest them with heft and heart.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart play Becca and Howie Corbett, a couple in their late 30s who lost their 4-year-old son, Danny, after being hit by a car eight months earlier. Though the film is adapted from a play by David Lindsay-Abaire (who also wrote the screenplay), there's no theatricality to their performances -- Howie and Becca feel like real, flawed people who could be living next door.

On the surface, Becca is the "problem" half of the couple. A homemaker who gave up her job at Sotheby's, she keeps the house and gardens ordered and neat like a good upstate New Yorker in the Martha Stewart mold. She's brittle and defensive, and at a group therapy meeting she mouths off at another grieving mother.

"It's just too much God-talk for me," she complains, resolving to skip any future sessions.

A highly organized person, Becca has organized her grief in a way that's least painful for her.

Though Howie remains superficially gregarious and productive, there's a dark rage boiling inside him. On some level he blames Becca for not watching Danny better, or blames himself for leaving the gate open that allowed him to run into the street, or blames the family dog for leading him out that gate.

While better hidden, Howie's sorrow is highly volatile, ready to erupt.

Becca is the sort who, when in pain, tends to lash out at those closest to her. Much of the brunt is borne by her mother, Nat (a superb Diane Wiest), a blue-collar church-going person who's somewhat mystified by the elegant, affluent woman her daughter has turned into.

Nat, who lost her own adult son to drug addiction, gives a moving speech about grief: At some point the weight of it becomes tolerable, she says, like a brick that you carry around in your purse. You occasionally forget about it, but it's always there, because that's what you have left instead of your child.

Exacerbating Becca's anguish is the fact that her never-do-well sister Izzy (Tammy Blanchard) has just become pregnant by her musician boyfriend (Giancarlo Esposito). Izzy's carefree, we'll-worry-tomorrow attitude flies in the face of Becca's carefully planned existence.

Ostensibly, she's worried that Izzy may not be ready to be a parent, but we suspect her real fear is that she'll prove a better mother than Becca herself.

A few other characters slide into the frame. There's Gaby (Sandra Oh), the organizer of the group therapy meetings, who forms a bond with Howie -- they take to smoking pot in her car to loosen up before sessions (he has continued to go even after Becca quit). Unlike Becca, Gaby is upfront about the loss of her child, which appeals to Howie's craving for empathy.

The most curious addition is Jason (Miles Teller), a 17-year-old who happened to be driving the car that killed Danny. It wasn't really his fault, but like the others Jason has come to internalize the tragedy. It's illustrated in a comic book he's writing about parallel universes that he shares with Becca, which gives the movie its name.

"Rabbit Hole" is directed by John Cameron Mitchell, whose two previous features -- about a transvestite rock 'n' roller ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch") and an ensemble drama featuring graphic, unsimulated sexuality ("Shortbus") -- might not seem an obvious choice for this unassuming character study.

But Mitchell has a sensitive touch with his actors that helps them deeply etch their characters into an audience's mind and soul. The performances are spectacular, but you won't catch anyone acting.

3.5 stars out of four