Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Chris Cooper, Susan Kelechi Watson, Marvann Plunkett, Enrico Colantoni, Wendy Makkena, Tammy Blanchard, Noah Harpster, Carmen Cusack, Kelley Davis, Christine Lahti, Maddie Corman, Daniel Krell, Jon L. Peacock, Gretchen Koerner.
It could be forcibly argued that we have been looking in the wrong places for our heroes, certainly in an age dominated by looks, by appearance, by the facade of the face shown rather than what is more important, the heart, the soul, and the way they communicate their message.
We are so deeply immersed in the idea of celebrity culture that we have become blinded by the lure of excess, to be an inspiration, a hero is to have your face on the cover of every magazine and have the world listen to your whim and desire as if it was written by the deity of your current choice and handed to you via two tablets, carved in stone, and with an endorsed product handily by your side; the camera loving you, and a nation obsessed with your sex-life, with who you follow.
This is the end image of consumerism, the death toll rang out gloriously across the land, and yet there is still a chance to understand that these people to whom we prostrate ourselves in the hope of being noticed, that we wear their branded clothes, drink the same soda, attempt the same diets as, don’t actually care about us, that as soon as the pennies, dollars and cents dry up from our pocket, they move on to the next possibility of scourging a note of interest.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood does not exactly suggest a course of revolution in which to solve this particular exposed act of self-betrayal, but certainly one of re-evaluation, that even if you have no faith, you can still be spiritual, that you can take the time to listen, to engage and offer your soul to another human being and relieve the fears that have built up inside them, a tidal wave of emotion that we carry over from when we are children, and to which is dismissed as lacking in fortitude, of using that dreadful and unpardonable phrase, of being a man.
It is to this that we lack humanity, decency, compassion, and one that was to be found by the bucket load in Fred Rogers and which, despite the film being more to do with the idea of cynical journalism and family, still showed exactly the right qualities to which made Mr. Rogers a household name, but to whom his reasoning maintained that it was not for the money or fame, but for the knowledge that children who are comforted, told the truth to about what we mistakenly believe are taboo subjects, grow up to be better adults, finer human beings.
Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harper’s beautifully delivered tale, inspired by the magazine article Can You Say…Hero, sees Tom Hanks, as Fred Rogers, and Matthew Rhys as Lloyd Vogel capture the essence of the man and his audience; that his programme was not only for children, but for adults also who was hurting, who could not understand how they had become the adult they were, in pain, angry, jealous, frightened and lost.
It is to the memory of people such Fred Rogers that we have heroes who don’t resemble our perception of the often vain, vacuous, and deeply impersonal. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is a reminder that we can offer a presence of truth without being rude, that we can smile and ask questions, and not be ridiculed for our mistakes. Beauty is not about vanity, but of how we make others feel beyond the depths of soul, a talent that Mr. Rogers had with style.
Ian D. Hall