A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood (2019)

I am so excited to have seen this beautiful movie. So excited that such a movie is still possible to be made in the times we live in today. And so excited that this is not some Hollywood made up fairy tale but rather, about people who really existed not too long. Tom Hanks gives us yet another tour de force performance as the Fred Rogers, the American television host of a children programme "Mr Rogers' Neighbourhood" which apparently ran for 33 years!! While I have to confess that I have not heard of Mr Rogers much less seen any of his television programmes, Tom Hank's mesmerising portrayal of this American icon is so infectious and effective that he actually manages to fill you in very quickly on the Mr Rogers persona and magic instantly.

While it would have been easy and routine to tell the story of Mr Rogers in typical Hollywood made autobiography style, the makers of this movie cleverly chose to tell his story from an episode in a later part of his life when he was interviewed by an Esquire magazine journalist, who is famed for writing unflattering expose on famous personalities that he has written profiles for. How the perfect Mr Rogers instils his positive values, kindness, and decency to the skeptical journalist may feel like a fairy tale but this really drives the point of Mr Rogers' power precisely. Here is a story that gives us hope. A story that teaches us about forgiveness and how to deal with life's challenges. It does not provides us the answers to everything of course but it gives us hope that positivity can triumph over the negative if we give it a try.

Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers (left) versus the real McCoy (right)

I always like watching movies that are based on true stories or about real life people. One way to gauge how successful such movie are is whether they make you want to learn more about what you have just seen. It is impossible to cover everything about the story or person within the confines of the two hours or so running time so many details would be missing. A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood just made me Google on Fred Rogers and I am going to try and see if I can catch any of his actual television programmes. There was a brief snippet of the real Fred Rogers at the end credits and my impression was that I think perhaps Tom Hanks had out done Fred Rogers himself with his performance! I personally think Tom Hanks should get the Oscar for Best Actor for this performance but alas it shall not likely happen. Firstly he got nominated for Best Supporting Actor rather than Best Actor (not sure why but probably due to some strange Hollywood technicality or strategy to increase chances of a win). Secondly he is up against Brad Pitt who has so far won practically every award for the Best Supporting Actor category for Once Upon A Time in Hollywood in the current Awards season.