Corrie Film Club

The next film showing at Corrie Film Club is A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood (USA 2019. Marielle Heller. 106 mins. Cert PG), on Sunday 16th April at 7.30pm.

A timely story of kindness triumphing over cynicism in a film based on a true story about the friendship between Fred Rogers, played by Tom Hanks and journalist, Tom Junod. “A warm cosy hug of a film.”

Lloyd Vogel is an investigative journalist who receives an assignment to profile Fred Rogers, aka Mr. Rogers. He approaches the interview with skepticism, as he finds it hard to believe that anyone can have such a good nature. But Roger’s empathy, kindness and decency soon chips away at Vogel’s jaded outlook on life, forcing the reporter to reconcile with his own painful past.

Peter Bradshaw reviewing in The Guardian, 30th January 2020, sums up:

“Director Marielle Heller and screenwriters Noah Harpster and Micah Fitzerman-Blue have adroitly set up the tightrope that Tom Hanks has to walk across, stretching it between irony and belief, and the result is a really entertaining and touching film.

Hanks brilliantly portrays Rogers’s innocence, at once elderly and childlike, his imperviousness to cynicism, his savant gift for sensing people’s unhappiness, together with a politician’s courtly way with interviewers that a certain kind of showbiz savvy has taught him.

And the moment when the kids on the New York subway spot Mr Rogers and start singing his theme tune to him, with adult passengers and cops joining in … well, I reckon I must have got something in my eye.”