Horrah another huge long opinion - how angry is my 'fan' getting now?

This film really is not a biopic of Fred Rogers the iconic Mr. Rogers so if you go into this expecting that you will be disappointed. It is, and I have to say another, film about the fractured relationship between children and one or both or their parents or siblings. I get drama, and the general belief that people love to watch conflict, but it is starting to look like everyone in the world hated their parents and did not speak to them anymore. Similar to every ex-serviceperson in a film having been in Special Services and on a conflict zone frontline. So as such if you are an avid filmgoer you have seen this scenario play out many times in many styles.

This does not necessarily make A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood a bad film. It is not. Tom Hanks brings Fred Rogers back to life with his usual skill and aplomb particularly in his mannerisms, his stillness and calm. I did feel that there was an underlying creepiness to the performance in certain scenes that I never got from films and clips of the real Mr. Rogers. Chris Cooper pops up with his usual hard-ass unpleasant character role although this one has genuinely found redemption in the form of Dorothy before he tries to find his final redemption with his estranged son Lloyd.

Lloyd played by Cardiff-born actor Matthew Rhys is probably the weakest link for me. Not so much the acting but more the situation which seems to get more unlikely as it plays out. These father/son relationships always seem to be the same, a good bit of actorly, showy, conflict and wrapped up nice and neat. As wonderful as Fred Rogers was it is certain he could not just end years of anger and rowing with a few choice words and an impromptu ‘stare-out’. More obvious when the real journalist, Tom Junod, did not actually have a terrible conflict with his father who did not abandon his family, there were no wedding punch-ups. Having said this it is difficult to fit in a long-term friendship that made Junod reassess his whole macho attitude to being a man due to Rogers’ influence in just over ninety-minutes. So, no huge criticism then.

The focus of the film is rightly Vogel and Rogers to this extent the women do get side-lined somewhat, which is strange as the director is Marielle Heller a little bit more of the two women in these men’s lives to give a different perspective might have added a bit more interest but this is just my idea and certainly as the film is edited and shown it is not detrimental.

The recreation of the cities and towns as Mr. Rogers Neighborhood of Make-Believe as we transition between different scenes is a great artistic and clever device. Is Heller telling us that although this is set in the real world it is still all make-believe. Or have I booked myself a place in Pseud’s Corner? Nevertheless, I liked the idea.

All of the acting is exemplary and Heller has a top-notch cast to hand and her directing is good, trimming the fat of what could be a sappy and saccharine and getting to the nub of the story she wants to tell. The film is good and entertaining.

If you would like to see something that tells you more about Fred Rogers, the way he thought, his philosophy and outlook then A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood salutes this and even hints at the illness that ended his life, but it is not about this. I would recommend the 2018 documentary Won’t You Been My Neighbor by Morgan Neville, which is entirely about the man, his influence, the people he interacted with and is much more moving.

All in all A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is a good ninety minutes of solid emotional entertainment packed through with good actors, including a welcome return to by big TV screen of Christine Lahti and Enrico Colantoni who I have not seen in much recently, I know they have worked full-time since the last time I saw them, I just mean I had not seen them for some time. It is real life as fantasy to fit in a story to be told that sort of played out in real life but it is not bad for that, it is a dramatic conceit that dramatists have been practicing for decades.

My only real and very petty complaint was Matthew Rhys veneers, I found them extremely distracting as they did not in the slightest bit look natural and I kept thinking they were ill-fitting dentures due to way he was talking