Cecil says: The older he gets, the more I find I’m enjoying Tom Hanks’ acting. Maybe that’s just me getting older, too, and relating, but I’m seeing more depth and more layers to his characters than I ever remember in earlier roles.
In Neighborhood, he’s great as Mr Rogers, the
children’s TV presenter, known and loved by several generations of Americans,
and with a canny knack of tuning into the real needs of each person he connects
with.
Funnily enough, the kids TV programmes I thought about as I
watched the film were Trumpton and Camberwick Green, the UK equivalent in the
1960s, with model people and buildings, and daily goings-on behind the doors.
The windows he opened and the voice he used reminded me more of Play School,
but that was for an even younger audience back then.
The main character in this film, though, Lloyd Vogel, is a
rather unappealing 40 year old journalist who has a long-suffering wife, a
small baby and a Dad he has massive anger towards. His task is to profile Mr
Rogers for a magazine feature on ‘heroes’, and he tries to probe under the
smiling, calm surface of Rogers to get to the real man underneath.
On the way he has massive fights with his Dad, treats his
wife uncaringly and just came across to me as someone who needed a good dose of
psychotherapy to get all those demons out in a safe place, rather than taking
them out on people around him. I found him a totally unsympathetic character,
so had no empathy for his situation, and certainly no tears when things went
even further wrong for the man.
Rogers smoothly glances aside any probing questions from Vogel,
saying only that he is only human himself, and finds an outlet for any
frustrations he may have comes in thrashing down hard on the deepest bass keys
of his piano. And there’s a scene very late on in the film, where we see Rogers
do just that: so is that just him letting off steam after a hard day? Or is it
a hint that maybe there are darker layers to the guy than we get to see in the
film? We’ll never know, but it was an interesting moment, and I give the guy
the benefit of the doubt…
***
Bea says: I saw Neighborhood at the Glasgow Film Theatre and
went knowing very little about it other than it was Tom Hanks’ latest
outing. I thought, from the title, that
it would be some kind of happy, pleasant film – and in some ways it was, but it
was actually very, very emotionally intense as well.
Not being American, I know little of Mr Rogers other than
that he is/was a popular children’s entertainer from the 1960s-80s. The insights into his motivation for this – helping
children deal with deep and difficult emotions such as anxiety – was interesting.
Our modern times are complex and difficult indeed – I sat grimacing
throughout as I expected Lloyd Vogel’s investigative journalism to uncover some
dreadful deed along the lines of those children’s television presenters who
have more recently fallen from grace.
But this does not happen, and I was so relieved that it did not. In a way, this was the only light relief the
film had for me – Lloyd is not an overly likeable character but his difficult
childhood and family life help to explain that, and his journey of
self-discovery as he gets to know Mr Rogers better is heavy but at least ends
well.
Tom Hanks is very good – again, perhaps I have been
programmed by our modern times but I did find him slightly creepy in this role….maybe
that was intentional? I wasn’t alone, as
the cinema usher told me the same thing on the way out.
I suspect the awards surrounding this film are nostalgic and
to do with Americans remembering their Mr Rogers years fondly, although the
story and acting are very good.
My main or only critique was that It was surprisingly poor on
the Bechtel however…I would have liked to see or hear a bit more from the
female characters.
However, recommended.
***.5
No comments:
Post a Comment