Posted on 11/24/2019 8:04:43 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Lloyd Vogel a is hard-nosed magazine reporter who makes the movers and shakers of the world flee.
He asks the tough questions that undercover corruption. He finds out what the politicians and the businessmen are reallydoing behind closed doors. In other words, he’s the type of journalist no one wants to talk to.
But then Vogel is given a nightmare assignment – interviewing Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fame.
“You hired me as an investigative journalist. I don’t do puff pieces,” he tells his editor at Esquire.
His editor, though, won’t relent.
“I think this could help you, Lloyd,” she says, referencing his view of the world and his public image.
Will Vogel uncover any dirt on Mister Rogers? Or will the kind-and-gentle TV host end up changing Vogel for the better?
It’s all part of the new film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (PG), which stars Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan, Toy Story series) as Fred Rogers, Matthew Rhys (Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle) as Vogel, and Susan Kelechi Watson (This Is Us) as Vogel’s wife, Andrea.
It is based on a true story.
Here are five things you should know:
Warning: spoilers ahead!
Tom Hanks nails the performance of Mister Rogers – from the gentle mannerisms, to the soft-spoken cadence, to the unforgettable changing of the shoes. It is an Oscar-worthy performance. Rhys is impressive, as is Watson.
The film perfectly recreates the look and feel of the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood set. Mr. McFeely makes an appearance. Picture Picture does, too.
The movie also weaves in elements from the show throughout the film. For example, instead of showing us the real skyline of Pittsburgh, where Mister Rogers lived and worked, the film shows us a Pittsburgh-like skyline recreated from toys. Toy cars crawl across the toy bridge. We see Rogers comment, as if speaking to the camera on television, about Vogel’s problems in life. We also learn about how magazines are made – just like the series would have done.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood isn’t a biopic of Fred Rogers, even though it contains plenty of Mister Rogers moments. Instead, the story carries us on a journey as we discover how one man, Lloyd Vogel, was changed by meeting Rogers. Vogel was harboring feelings of hatred toward his father, but Rogers teaches him how to forgive.
It’s not unlike the way millions of children were impacted by “meeting” Rogers each day through the wonder of television.
Photo courtesy: Sony
The movie forces us to ask: Why aren’t we kinder and more compassionate with friends, neighbors and strangers? Why do we get distracted, so easily, by worldly things? And why aren’t we the same person in private as we are in public?
The film portrays Mister Rogers as someone who always had time to do a kind deed. When a Make-a-Wish Foundation child appears on set, before taping, Rogers gives them prolonged one-on-one attention – as the crew stands around and waits for the visit to end. When he and Vogel sit together in a restaurant, Rogers listens intently to his companion – instead of looking around as so many of us would do.
“His focus was always on the individual with whom he was speaking. He was never distracted,” Bill Isler, the former president & CEO of The Fred Rogers Company, told Crosswalk.
The Mister Rogers we saw on TV was the same person his friends knew behind the camera, Isler said.
The Lloyd Vogel character is based on the life of a real-life journalist, Tom Junod.
“I think that you expect everybody to be a different person behind the camera than they are in front of the camera,” Junod told Crosswalk. “Fred was definitely one of those people who was not.”
Politicians often debate the solutions to society’s problems. Perhaps some of the answers rest in the New Testament’s Fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood shows the power of kindness and compassion. It demonstrates what can happen when one person invests in the life of another person. Despite Vogel’s reputation as a hard-nosed journalist, Rogers agrees to the interview. And thanks to Mister Rogers, Vogel changes for the better.
“The thing that struck me about Fred was his degree of empathy,” Junod said. “... It was just an extraordinary thing to watch how quickly he could get people to open up to him and how quickly he could feel whatever it was that they were feeling.”
The movie teaches us about forgiveness and reconciliation, and the importance of fathers and families.
The plot changes a few things about Junod’s story – in real life, he had a good relationship with his father -- but it correctly mirrors Junod’s desire to be kinder and gentler than his dad was.
Junod enjoyed the movie. The father angle, he said, “struck me for its emotional truth, rather than its factual adherence.”
Politicians often debate the solutions to society’s problems. Perhaps some of the answers rest in the New Testament’s Fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood shows the power of kindness and compassion. It demonstrates what can happen when one person invests in the life of another person. Despite Vogel’s reputation as a hard-nosed journalist, Rogers agrees to the interview. And thanks to Mister Rogers, Vogel changes for the better.
“The thing that struck me about Fred was his degree of empathy,” Junod said. “... It was just an extraordinary thing to watch how quickly he could get people to open up to him and how quickly he could feel whatever it was that they were feeling.”
The movie teaches us about forgiveness and reconciliation, and the importance of fathers and families.
The plot changes a few things about Junod’s story – in real life, he had a good relationship with his father -- but it correctly mirrors Junod’s desire to be kinder and gentler than his dad was.
Junod enjoyed the movie. The father angle, he said, “struck me for its emotional truth, rather than its factual adherence.”
Just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas, our can’t-agree-on-anything culture gets a Tom Hanks movie about … kindness.
And even though it’s based on a true story, Fred Rogers’ wife says it has a lot of symbolism.
“This is a parable,” she told Crosswalk, referencing the word’s Webster definition: a short story that illustrates a moral principle.
Her husband practiced kindness and wanted “others to do likewise,” she said.
It’s a lesson all of us could learn.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood isn’t a faith-based like War Room, Overcomer or I Can Only Imagine. Rogers’ faith is mentioned, but it’s not the core of the plot. The film also has minor language (details below).
Still, the film makes clear that Mister Rogers practiced the Fruit of the Spirit because his faith propelled him to do so. We see him kneeling at his bed, praying for individuals by name (Vogel among them). We hear his wife mentioning how he reads Scripture.
In real life, Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister.
“[The television show] was a ministry for him,” Joanne Rogers, his wife told Crosswalk. “... He wanted to be a minister. He wanted to be a teacher.”
His belief in Christ, she added, played a “very strong” role in his beliefs about kindness and forgiveness.
“His faith was exceedingly strong.”
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is rated PG for some strong thematic material, a brief fight, and some mild language. Content warnings: Language includes h-- (4), OMG (2), d--n (1) and s--t (1). (None of it is spoken by Fred Rogers.) We hear a reference to a character “sleeping around.” Two men fight at a wedding.
Entertainment rating: 5 out of 5 stars.
“Can’t stand Tom Hanks as a person, but he is talented and probably good in this.“
He produced an amazing show for the outstanding WWII museum in New Orleans. It is worth the trip.
That’s just cynical. Can you point to anything in that show that was “creepy”?
“As a kid, I thought Mr. Rogers was creepy.”
So did I. Wasn’t at all interested in watching it.
Still, this movie will do very well at the box office. Sounds like it will be appropriate for the holidays.
Forrest Gump was one of the best feel-good movies of all time, IMO. Tom Hanks has really had quite a remarkable film career. I don’t think I’ve seen one of his movies that I didn’t like, and I’ve seen many of them. Maybe he will actually make Fred Rogers look...not so creepy.
Mr. Rogers’ persona. Give me Officer Joe Bolton any day. Or Froggie the Gremlin.
The only thing I need to know is it stars Tom Hanks.
FUTH.
I guess Mr. Rogers should have worn a Bowie knife strapped on over his cardigan.
I thought Mr. Rogers acted like a queer when I was a boy in the 1950s and 1960s.
He could have been a swingin’ dick bound for the army, I don’t know. All I can speak to is the lack luster Beta Male image he projected on his show. I never wahtchd him myslef as a kid, I watch Roy Rogers , The Lone Ranger and Davy crocket like most boys my age.
Anyone who said “ What a wonderful day in the neighborhood,” to me, invited me into his home after offering me candy?
Nah! They were the kind of people I was warned about when I was a kid as being dangerous.
Now in hindsight, all the Age of Aquarius soft femmes are drooling over his memory, while in fact it was men portrayed by Clint Eastwood who actually make our country work through individual sacrifice, leadership and strength.
The meme is laughable, “ I want my son to grow up like that.” In fact they are inviting their children to be victims who do not know how to take care of themselves
either at home or abroad.
“Or Froggie the Gremlin.”
Yes: ‘Pluck your magic twanger Froggie’ Andy Devine had a good show. I didn’t know frogs had ‘twangers’. LOL
Is Froggie a frog or a gremlin? In any case, he was certainly a forerunner of the 60s “hate authority” trend. What a wonderful creation he was.
I saw the previews and Hanks makes him more creepy.
Already got a gun. Already went to the range. And a bad prostrate takes care of the lead in the pencil. The late and Great Chesty Puller alluded to the fact that a weak Countries, civilizations, and nations were always taken over by stronger ones. The Beta civilization is weak and becoming weaker. The Beta men are trying to become women.
Both. LOL
A frog is what he is. A gremlin is what it does.
Gremlin: an imaginary mischievous sprite regarded as responsible for an unexplained problem or fault.
Ah! That explains it.
This Obama loving ass looks like a jerk with his squinty eyes. I am so tired of seeing that stupid pose all day on TV. He doesn’t look anything like Mr Rogers, but Hollyweird says he does.
Thanks. And it is pesky.
LOL my husband and I had this discussion last night. As young viewers back on the day, Mr Rogers gave us the creeps.
Exactly. I watched Mr. Roger’s as a child and credit his show with some of my ability to show empathy and kindness to others. I credit the U.S.M.C. for my desire to kill enemy combatants.
He was creepy - just the way he talked and stared...and those puppets! Yuck! That awful lady one that lived in a carousel looked like she had a drunk going on.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood isn’t a faith-based like War Room, Overcomer or I Can Only Imagine. Rogers’ faith is mentioned, but it’s not the core of the plot.”
Then it’s not really about who this guy was and why, is it?
My take on Mr. Rogers is that he was a milquetoast, and a good one at that. Grateful for any civility he has instilled in his audience, but mystified by the idea that kindness alone defines a full life.
We all want to be nice, but you know what? Reality interferes at times. No one likes the disciplinarian, but God is a disciplinarian, and yes, kindness and goodness are His stock in trade, but not without discipline, not without pointing clearly to wrongs and rights.
Mr. Rogers did this obliquely on his show. Not sure what he spoke from the pulpit. Have never known or heard of an occasion where he explicitly confessed Christ Jesus as the one and only Atoning Sacrifice for the sin of the world.
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