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TagFred Rogers

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TIFF: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

I am fiercely protective about Mister Rogers. So when I heard that there was a new biopic about him I was skeptical. When I heard Tom Hanks was portraying Mister Rogers in the film I was skeptical. When I arrived for the TIFF screening at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, ticket in hand, I was still skeptical. In fact I was skeptical for the first half of the movie. Why was everyone laughing? Don’t laugh What if audiences don’t fully understand or appreciate who Mister Rogers truly was? It hit me half way through the film that to really know Mister Rogers, we need to know the affect he had on others. And that is exactly what this film delivered.

Directed by Marielle Heller, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood takes an unconventional route to tell the story of an extraordinary man. It’s loosely based on Tom Junod’s Esquire article from the late 1990s.

Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) is an angry and bitter man. Like Junod, he writes for Esquire and is known for his particularly callous approach to writing profiles. No one wants to be interviewed by him except for Mister Rogers who takes a particular interest in Lloyd and sees an opportunity to help him. Lloyd has a difficult relationship with his father Jerry (Chris Cooper) who abandoned the family when Lloyd’s mother was dying. Lloyd is unable to forgive and the two have a volatile relationship. When assigned to write a 400 word piece on Rogers, Lloyd gets more than he bargained for. As he enters Mister Rogers world he struggles to comprehend what makes Rogers tick. The two continue to meet under the guise of the article, which Lloyd eventually writes a much longer profile which becomes the cover piece for the magazine. But it’s through this project that Lloyd learns to reconcile with his dad, to let go of the anger and to find some happiness within himself.

Mister Rogers gets a supporting role in his own biopic and that’s just the way he would have wanted it. Heller and the team of writers craft a unique structure which is part dark comedy and built within the confines of a faux episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. We get (what I believe is) a recreation of the set, the famous intro (cardigan, shoes, song and all) and the closing theme song. There’s the photo board, a picture picture sequence (all about how magazines are made), a visit from Mr. McFeely, a trip to the neighborhood of Make-Believe complete with King Friday and Daniel the Tiger and interstitials show the neighborhood set miniatures and when Lloyd is traveling those sequences are told in similar miniatures. There are dream sequences including a nightmare one that happens on the set. We see the production team, Rogers’ trusted assistant Bill (Enrico Colantoni), Rogers’ wife Joanne (Maryann Plunkett) spends time with Lloyd.

My favorite scene in the film is when Rogers and Lloyd meet at a restaurant and Rogers asks him for one minute of silence and to imagine the people he loves most surrounding him. The real Mister Rogers did this often and believed in the power of silence. We get that one whole minute of silence and as the camera pans we see cameos from Joanne Rogers herself and several other people from his life. I would give anything to watch that one scene again right now.

Courtesy of TIFF

I worry about viewers who didn’t grow up with or appreciate Mister Rogers. I grew up in the ’80s and Rogers was a sort of father figure to me. My own father lacked Rogers’ gentle demeanor, kindness, and understanding nature. I sought that through Rogers. He had a profound affect on how I view myself (to like myself just the way I am), to not be afraid to deal with my emotions and to be kind to others. 

One scene worried me in particular. As Lloyd is grilling Rogers about his “burden” and how he deals with it, Rogers takes out Daniel the Tiger. Lloyd is obviously frustrated that Rogers is not answering his question. But those who KNOW a thing or two about Rogers knows that Daniel the Tiger WAS his way of dealing with that burden. If you don’t know anything about Rogers, doing a bit of research ahead of time will be essential.  A viewing of Morgan Neville’s documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?  before watching Heller’s film is all you’ll really need.

Courtesy of TIFF

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is a touching tribute and will be a major contribution in keeping the memory of Mister Rogers, and his particular brand of kindness, alive. I started getting emotional from the very first scene and cried throughout. This film really got to me even if it took me more than an hour to appreciate what it was trying to do.

Tom Hanks delivers a solid performance as Mister Rogers and I wouldn’t be surprised if some award nominations come his way. He nails the nuances, the gestures, the slower pace of moving, Rogers’ somewhat awkward body language and even the voice is simply spot on. Chris Cooper’s performance as Jerry shouldn’t be overlooked either. 

Watch A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood but don’t forget to bring tissues.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood had its world premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival as a gala presentation.

Posted 2 Comments on Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Documentaries

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

I cry every time I talk about Mister Rogers. Every. single. time.

It doesn’t matter the context. The tears well up in my eyes. I struggle to hold them back but I always fail. To say that Mister Rogers had a big impact on my childhood is an understatement. He continues to have an impact on me decades later as I’m well into my adult years. Fred Rogers passed away in 2003. 15 years later we need him now more than ever.

Directed by Academy Award winner Morgan Neville, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018) is a new documentary chronicling the life of the beloved host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Fred Rogers. Told through interviews, clips from the show, home video footage, news footage and more, audiences get a closer look at the man whose TV presence impacted generations of children. The talking heads in the movie are members of Fred Rogers’ close circle. These include his wife, his two sons, actors from the show, guests from the show like Yo-Yo Ma and a few others who knew him well. This gives the documentary a level of intimacy that would not have been attained if outsiders like academics, professionals, cultural historians had been included in the mix. We learn about Rogers’ early years and how his path towards becoming a Presbyterian minister was put aside when he saw a need to help children through the medium of television. Fred Rogers transformed into Mister Rogers, a gentle, caring and patient screen presence who encouraged kids to feel good about themselves and also guided them through some of the more difficult aspects of growing up and life in general.

WOntYouBe

Fans of the show will recognize many familiar faces including David Newell (Mr. McFeeley), Betty Aberlin (Lady Aberlin), Joe Negri (Handyman Negri) and Francois Clemmons (Officer Clemmons). There are even members who worked behind the scenes including floor manager Nick Tallo who had some great stories to share. They speak at length regarding important and ground-breaking moments in the show and what Fred Rogers was like to work with. Fans will also appreciate how the documentary goes into detail how Mister Rogers used puppets and the land of make believe to convey important messages to children when a direct approach would not be as effective. We also learn how events and cultural moments of the last half of the 20th century affected children and in turn how Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood addressed those concerns.

The show was ground breaking. Where other television programming for children was fast-paced, flashy, goofy and often violent, Rogers and his team had something special. The pace was slow and methodical but with not a wasted minute. Mister Rogers was always transparent with children, whether it was on his show or in person, about the format of television, what was real about it and what wasn’t. I remember one episode from the 1980s where Rogers takes viewers behind the scenes and show all the particulars of the set and introduces us to Johnny Costa, the pianist who played the music to the show. In another episode, Negri leaves his dog with Rogers to dogsit. Rogers is very clear with viewers that the set isn’t his real home and that he has a wife and children in a real home elsewhere. I always appreciated this about him. He could have relied on the smoke and mirrors quality of television. He chose honesty instead.

We like to put Fred Rogers in the mold of modern day saint but he was a much more complicated man than that. He was very vocal in his dislike for television. It took him years to accept actor Francois Clemmons’ homosexuality. Rogers had an obsession with his weight, always keeping it at 143 because that number represented the words I Love You. In his later years, especially after he retired, he got depressed, wouldn’t see the doctor for the stomach ailment that eventually turned into the cancer that killed him and he doubted the impact he had on people and whether he could still have an impact.

I knew I would get emotional watching this film. I thought it would be for the many reasons that the memory of Mister Rogers makes me cry. A couple a years ago I spent an entire year watching one episode of the show per week (a local PBS affiliate would air an episode from the early 1980s every Saturday morning at 6 am). I would record it, watch it and cry. I’d cry from happiness of seeing Mister Rogers again and from the pain that nostalgia brings with it. I cried from the loss of those early years, the loss of my childhood and the loss of my father. Every episode would bring a flood of emotions. Even as a kid I was never interested in the land of make believe and I would get upset when the trolley showed up in Mister Rogers apartment because I knew he’d be gone for a little while. I really just wanted to spend time with him.

When I watched Won’t You Be My Neighbor I cried for a very different reason than I had expected. This surprised me. We live in an era in which dirty politics, mass shootings, bullying, and cruelty dominate our society. Mister Rogers was the embodiment of kindness. True and unadulterated kindness. He always told us “ I like you just the way you are.” In 2018, that kindness doesn’t seem to exist any more, a point brought up in the documentary and reflected on by Rogers’ wife Joanne. We live in a divided culture and we are cruel to each other on a daily basis. 15 years after his death we need Mister Rogers’ brand kindness more than ever. We need him to tell us to look for the helpers. We need him to remind us that “it’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive.” We need him to tell us it’s okay to be mad, sad, glad and that it’s okay to work through our emotions. We still need Mister Rogers and we get a little bit of him through this film.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018) is screening in select theaters now.

Official Website 
Trailer