I went into this movie with some assumptions. Some of them were fulfilled and some were outdone entirely. A few of you have been subjected to the fondness that I possess for the documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor". My assumption about this movie would that it would be a sentimental story about Fred Rogers and the life of a journalist he touched, but ultimately, the real Fred Rogers in the Documentary would maintain a stronger presence because it is made of real moments with him.
But this movie broke that assumption and became something entirely different. Not worse or better, but a different part of that legacy. The documentary treated us like we were meeting him. We got to know about him and see the man behind the sweater. This was different. We got to see how he affected others, and the profundity with which he did that by caring deeply about and valuing each interaction with every single person he met.
It would surprise you to know that Mr Rogers, as portrayed by Tom Hanks probably takes up less than half the screen time of the film. He isn't it's focus, but he is it's catalyst. And no moment with him is wasted either, not even a whole minute of silence.
For a long time my favorite movie was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind because if the artful direction, and the introspective way it approached our feelings. This new film has in a moment taken that peak. I am not a superstitious man and I have no belief in fate, but I have never seen a film that so perfectly captured me emotionally. It collected all of the odd and strange things that make me cry at movies and shows, and there are many people who will tell you that those moments aren't usual for me, and it put them all in perfect arrangement right there with scenes that might have been pulled right out of my own life.
But ultimately, the biggest reason it will now take the place in my heart right at the top, is because it didn't just tell a story about Mister Rogers, it did exactly what he was always trying to do, and showed people who might not know, that their feelings, no matter how big or insurmountable they seem, are mentionable and manageable, and that doing so will always make things a little better. And as a bonus, we get one more episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood to encapsulate the story.
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This was initially a story I posted on my facebook, but I decided to move it to to this blog and revive it for a time because there were more thoughts I had.
I've been looking up reviews of the movie, not to see the accollades, but to see the negative reviews, however scarce they are. But as with all things, not everyone can like everything. As I was readng the negative reviews, I started to mentally codify the points that many of them were making, and find any common complaint. What I found was in line with other movies that have been almost universally applauded: Expectations.
The most common complaint I could find about the film was that "The movie isnt really about Mister Rogers, he's barely in it" or some variation about not getting as much of Mister Rogers as they believed had been advertised. The strange thing about reading these reviews is that I didn't disagree with the premise of the argument, but I interpreted it differently. As I stated earlier, the 2018 documentary was a profile on Fred Rogers as a man and the movie was about his legacy. It told us how he shaped and affected us as collective culture. But thats a pretty lofty idea to wrap your head around, so its to be expected. I also expected the movie to be more about Mister Rogers, but in not doing so, it did something so much richer that I am genuinely sad to say was lost a few viewers who decried it as "Boring" or "Underwhelming".
I actually laughed at my desk when one reviewer wrote that "long parts of the movie were boring and uninteresting" because anyone who has a passing knowledge of Fred Rogers body of work or who he was as a media creator understand that slow and boring is the point. He was a master of weaponizing silence and long periods of non-event time to illuminate his ideas. It would be like saying the Mona Lisa was uninteresting because she's not smiling more, or saing Starry Night couldve used fireworks in the background.
And maybe the saddest part is that those are exactly the people that Fred wanted to connect to. People who cant stand silence or slowness, and need to be distracted. I hope that at least some of the people who had those complaints would watch it again and just listen to the silence and see what it can tell them about themselves.
-Will
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