BFI London Film Festival 2019: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
“Once upon a time, a little boy loved a stuffed animal whose name was Old Rabbit.” This is how the famous cover story profile of Fred Rogers starts in Esquire magazine, and immediately the reader is transported into the mind of the writer, the world of Mr. Rogers, and the carefree mindset of their childhood selves. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, director Marielle Heller’s heart-warming adaptation of the same cover story, starts a similar way. Tom Hanks’ Rogers addresses us as if we were the children sat cross-legged and eagle-eyed in front of their televisions, transfixed by the man in front of them, and in turn we almost wish we were.
The neighborhood of Rogers’ long-running children’s television series, with its toy train set and bright blue sky, also leads us through the story of a group of dysfunctional characters whose lives intertwine in different ways throughout the film. Mr. Rogers shows us an image of Matthew Rhys’s Lloyd Vogel, and soon after we meet the cynical, moody Esquire journalist who’s less than happy to be assigned a 400-word “puff piece” on the television presenter for a special issue on America’s heroes. Still grieving over the childhood loss of his mother, Vogel’s relationship with his father, a brilliant Chris Cooper, is strained, made much worse by a wedding punch-up in an early scene. He works a lot, is perpetually angry at the world and struggles to connect with his baby son Gavin in the way that his wife Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson) seemingly does. Based on Tom Junod, the real journalist who wrote the Esquire piece, Vogel begrudgingly interviews Mr. Rogers, his initial frustration at the man’s calm and tolerant demeanor turning to awe and intrigue as they spend more time together.
The real Fred Rogers has been explored on screen before, most notably in last year’s documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, but Heller’s film imbues Hanks’ Rogers with even more infectious charisma by framing his effortlessly soothing personality in the context of the agitated, impatient and career-obsessed Vogel. Another contrast to Vogel comes in the form of the calm-mannered Andrea, who seems to have an abundance of patience for him, even while pretty much single-handedly raising their son after giving up her job to do so. There is something to be said here about the familiar and somewhat tired trope of the moody, emotionally unavailable man and his long-suffering wife, but Heller never asks us to like Vogel, despite his character arc forming the bulk of the narrative. The focus is instead on Mr. Rogers, who is categorically impossible not to like. His undivided attention is a luxury afforded to anyone that meets him, his perpetually sunny mood never once faltering. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is ‘nicecore’ at its finest; conflict simmers but never bubbles over into the unmanageable or unpredictable, and while grief and loss are confronted, the presence of Mr. Rogers is enough to make us feel as calmed and reassured as the characters in the film are whenever he’s around.
In a recent New York Times profile of Tom Hanks, the veteran actor suggests that he struggled with the “slowness” of Mr. Rogers. The way in which Rogers considers every word said to him, carefully constructing his responses with no desire to hurry the conversation towards a finish, often proves infuriating for those around him, especially Vogel, who initially has no interest in being in the man’s company for anything other than work purposes. Hanks attributes this slowness to “a combination of procedure and behavior that was singularly Fred Rogers”, and at first it’s not easy to get accustomed to. But the slowness draws you in, and any initial apprehension quickly dissipates; Heller’s film, and Hanks’ performance, invites you to sit back, take a breath, and get lost in the magic of the neighborhood.
