Yes, Virginia, There IS a Mr. Rogers

Every year, Hollywood trots out so-called “holiday films” that repackage the timeless (perhaps time-worn) story of how the spirit of Christmas transforms the cynical and selfish Scrooges and Grinches of the world into real persons of compassion and generosity. They are a ritual of the season as much as New Year’s resolutions, and usually just about as lasting in their impact. They offer feel-good sugar highs that collapse under the weight of their own fiction.

Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood – the long-awaited film featuring Tom Hanks as children’s television icon Fred Rogers – is not (thank God) a Christmas movie. But it is the rare holiday release about character transformation that works because, unlike the jolly elf of our secular Christmas mythology, there really is (or was) a Mr. Rogers.

Based on a now-classic 1998 profile of Mr. Rogers (“Can You Say… Hero?”) by Tom Junod, the film features all the familiar character tropes of a Christmas film: the cynical, worldly journalist Lloyd Vogel (a loose depiction of Junod played by Matthew Rhys) whose contempt for humanity is a projection of his own self-loathing; his drunken, estranged father Jerry (Chris Cooper) who is the source of the demons in Lloyd’s soul; Lloyd’s angelic, supportive spouse Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson) whose patience is running out; and, of course, the Spirit of Christmas in the person of Mr. Rogers who works the magic of redeeming and healing broken souls.

In lesser hands, the film would devolve into schlock melodrama or campy caricature, and there are times when you fear that the Neighborhood trolley is about to careen off its tracks. But thanks to Heller’s understated direction and the confident performances of Hanks, Rhys, Watson, and Cooper, the film overcomes the potential cheesiness of the father-son plot line.

Hanks clearly has the most difficult task. Rogers’ gentle sincerity has been an easy mark for parody and mockery. It is so familiar that even a near miss would ring hollow. But Hanks delivers an Oscar-worthy performance of subtlety and depth. He portrays Rogers with a complex interiority of caring and compassion along with hints of carefully guarded demons and wounds of his own.

Heller, also, takes chances that pay off in a film that transcends its material. The film is book-ended by the familiar opening and closing of the Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood show, in which Hanks-as-Rogers breaks the fourth wall by inviting the audience into the world of Vogel’s story just as the real Mr. Rogers invited children into his neighborhood. And in a bit of magical realism the neighborhood itself is deftly expanded with special effects to become the city of Pittsburgh and the “setting” for some of the film’s important sequences, so that we understand that Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and our own world are really one. Heller also adopts Rogers’ own measured pace, letting the spaces and silences expose our own discomfort with just being.

The reputation of its iconic hero notwithstanding, this is not a film for small children. It deals with very adult themes of healing childhood wounds by learning to love and forgive ourselves and others. Indeed, despite never disclosing that Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister, Rogers’ own faith and pastoral presence dominate the story. It could easily be understood as an extended parable on the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves – with the emphasis on the need to love ourselves in order fully to love our neighbors.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is a fitting complement to last year’s powerfully moving documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? If one did not know that Mr. Rogers really was who he presented himself to be, it might be dismissed as a piece of romanticized fluff. But there really was a Mr. Rogers, and that makes this a holiday film worth watching.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is rated PG for mature themes. 3.5 stars out of 4.

Viewing notes: Look for cameos by the real Joanne Rogers and David Newell (Mr. McFeely) in a restaurant scene. Also, don't leave before the end of the credits or you will miss a surprise "credit cookie."