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Blu-Ray Review: (Tom) Hanks For The Memories, Mister Rogers

Marielle Heller and Tom Hanks are good neighbors. ©2019 CTMG, Inc. All rights
reserved. Photo by: Lacey Terrell While few have noticed her name specifically,
Marielle Heller has quietly become one of the most exciting directors working
today, with a three-for-three track record of Diary of a Teenage Girl, Can You Ever
Forgive Me, and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which is out now on Blu-ray
and digital. Her first two movies barely broke even: Diary made $2.2 million
worldwide on a $2 million budget, and Can You got to $12 million worldwide on a $10
million budget. But acclaim and awards nominations have come each time, and
Beautiful Day finally scored her a hit, grossing $66 million on a $25 million
budget. The cynic might say that it took her making a movie about a man to get
noticed, but the reality is this is not just any man. It’s Fred Rogers, as eternal
a childhood icon as Big Bird, being played by possibly the only actor whose
reputation even comes close, in Tom Hanks. Given that, anyone probably could have
made a moderate success of the thing. But only Heller would have done it this well.
All three of Heller’s movies focus on tormented writers. Aspiring teenager Minnie
is at the beginning of her budding career as a cartoonist, middle-aged Lee Israel
is facing the end of hers as a biographer, and in the latest movie, Lloyd Vogel
(Matthew Rhys) is in his prime as a hotshot reporter but perhaps a nadir as a human
being — one could argue that all Heller’s protagonists feel that low when we first
meet them, regardless of actual circumstances. Vogel’s such a cynic that the film
is able to position Rogers, the ultimate in kindness and forgiveness, as an
antagonist, because he simply won’t let Lloyd (a fictionalized version of real-life
writer Tom Junod) succumb to his demons and take the unhappy path of least
resistance and soul-searching. I think most American kids probably go through a
cycle with Mister Rogers that I went through. The first time you encounter his
show, you see a nice man. Then maybe go through a phase of finding some of the
puppets scary, especially Lady Elaine. As you get old enough to assert yourself, a
homophobic take may develop — though Rogers was not gay, the schoolyard boy taunt
of “gay” encompasses more than the strict definition. Growing past that, one might
merely think of him as corny. But then you grow up, and realize just how rare the
pure love of people just the way they are is, and you want to hug Mister Rogers and
never let him go, and then you cry as you realize he died years ago while you were
busy making fun of his nasally New England accent. Lloyd Vogel starts at “corny,”
with a desire to find the dark side of what he perceives to be a character created
for the cameras. But there’s no such thing: Mister Rogers is authentically who he
seems to be, though we learn though the course of the movie that he has to work at
it just as anyone else would. One thing we do not learn, and one that drives me
slightly crazy, is why... -Fred Rogers did not have a Southern accent -Tom Hanks
does not have a Southern accent. -So why does Hanks-as-Rogers have a Southern
accent, instead of the George H. W. Bush voice we know so well? Heller addresses it
by saying she didn’t want a Saturday Night Live version of Rogers, and that Tom
Hanks’ charisma as Tom Hanks is important to convey aspects of Rogers’ analogous
charisma to those who might not have grown up with the PBS host. But why do an
accent that’s actually wrong? Hanks gets the cadences right enough that it’s not a
deal-breaker, but it remains a nagging oddity. Rhys, on the other hand, is so
convincing as an American that his natural Welsh accent in the behind-the-scenes
featurettes comes as a shock. And Louie’s Susan Kelechi Watson makes an impressive
movie debut as Lloyd’s long-suffering wife Andrea, caught in the middle of a
rekindled grudge between her husband and his alcoholic father (Chris Cooper). In a
mid-movie fantasy sequence, she also has to morph into a Mister Rogers cohost, and
does so with such ease you’d think she had always done it. Deleted scenes on the
disc make clear that originally, Lloyd was going to have a more obvious psychotic
break, but Heller decided it raised more questions than it answered, and was easier
to present as a nightmare. Heller and DP Jody Lee Lipes do a commentary track, and
it’s full of trivia on how they shot every scene, what they found most difficult,
and just how many of the original props and technology were the same as those used
on Rogers’ original show. (The last cameras of that style were apparently destroyed
in a burning building, and it took a while to find anything remotely similar.) In
many cases, audio and video effects are live even when it made things harder to do
so, though Lipes notes that any time they found a technical challenge, the solution
could almost always be found in the original TV show. Featurettes show just how the
puppets and props were reproduced, reveal the involvement of original crew members,
and even show a series of Tom Hanks flubs in which he gamely manages to stick to G-
rated swears every time he messes up. Nobody had told Heller that Rogers would
cheat the intro sequence with hidden cuts and oversized, pre-tied shoes that
slipped on, so she and Hanks tried to capture it all in one take...many times over.
Even a two-time Oscar winner makes mistakes, confound it! While Greta Gerwig fans
insist she’s entitled to more Oscar nominations and awards than she got for her
second-ever film as director, I’m going to say that Heller’s snub was much more
egregious. But that’s partly due to the fact that her films, including this one,
sneak up on you. Like Mister Rogers’ bon mots, they’re deceptively simple until
they’re not. And through portrayals of writers like Lloyd, she gets directly to the
art of the conflicted storyteller. There’s still time aplenty to bring her latest
home to your neighborhood, however, and realize that you can like it just for what
it is.

Tom Hanks is Fred Rogers in ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’

It is hard to imagine anyone not knowing the name “Fred Rogers,” or “Mr. Rogers.”
He’s an icon among children’s television shows. In the film “A Beautiful Day in the
Neighborhood,” Tom Hanks steps into the shoes of this iconic television legend and
brings him to life in a different way for viewers to see and gain even more
appreciation for Mr. Rogers. The movie was inspired from a 1998 article in
“Esquire” magazine written by Tom Junod. The story stars not only Hanks but also
Matthew Rhys. Rhys is the Junod character in this film. He’s a cynical journalist
who always seems to find something critical of even the world’s greatest heroes.
But in the case of Fred Rogers, although he went into the assignment with the
thought that he would expose the man as a phony, Lloyd Vogel (Rhys) winds up
becoming one of Fred Rogers’ greatest fans. Vogel is bitter and has been carrying a
grudge against his absentee father for ages. Then one day his father comes back
into his life, but Lloyd cannot let the anger go. His current assignment for the
magazine is to write a 400-word puff piece about Mr. Rogers. Rogers instinctively
knows there is more going on under the façade of Lloyd Vogel. As the on-screen
persona of Rogers merges with his real life, it becomes clear that Rogers is a
genuinely caring man. His empathy for others is true. His calming nature is real.
He is a likable fellow, to the chagrin of Vogel. The journalist simply cannot let
his cynicism go so he keeps digging and spending more and more time with Rogers.
There has to be something amiss with this man. But what Vogel uncovers is that
there is nothing to uncover. Empathy and decency are what viewers saw on TV with
Fred Rogers and empathy and decency was what Rogers was all about in person. This
is a film about two people: Fred Rogers and Lloyd Vogel. It is a story about how
their lives came together and how Vogel finally became a fan of the TV icon. What
began as a 400-word puff piece assignment turned into a full-length cover story.
The film is now available on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K. There are plenty of bonus
features including bloopers. For some reason Hanks had a difficult time zipping up
that red sweater. There are also deleted scenes, a “making of” feature, and a fun
look at how Hanks morphed into Rogers via makeup, hair, and costumes. Daniel Tiger,
one of Rogers’ characters who also has his own TV show, has a little featurette
explaining that practice makes perfect. There is also a look at how the puppets and
the look of the show were created. In the bonuses viewers learn that Hanks was
Rogers’ favorite actor. The aim of the film was authenticity and for Hanks, the
hardest part was slowing down, because Rogers did not speak quickly nor did he move
and react quickly. It is an interesting film with interesting visuals and at the
heart of it is the story of two men and how their lives connected. It’s all about
Rogers’ “power of empathy.”