It’s that time of year again. Actors and film-makers are pounding the awards-campaign trails, publicists are dashing off for-your-consideration adverts and voters are desperately catching up with 2019’s most acclaimed releases. You guessed it: Oscar season is right around the corner, and even sooner this time with the ceremony’s earlier-than-usual 9 February airdate. From Booksmart to A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, these are the movies you need to know about. The race is on...
A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood
What’s it about?
The irascible Esquire writer Lloyd Vogel is commissioned to profile the American children’s-television host and national treasure Fred Rogers for the publication’s ‘heroes’ issue. At first resistant to Rogers’ philosophy of accepting people as they are, Lloyd soon mollifies as he spends time with his selfless, open-hearted interviewee.
Who’s in it?
In a casting coup for the ages, the lovable Tom Hanks stars as the equally lovable Fred Rogers, and Matthew Rhys (in his second journalist role of the year after The Report) gives his crotchety best to Lloyd.
Why should you watch it?
Seeing A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood feels like bathing in healing waters that slough off the toxicity of daily life. Its valuing of kindness is a salve against the vituperative nastiness of the modern world, a place seemingly bereft of common courtesy and plagued by trolls bent on diminishing strangers’ self-worth. Wholesome and heartwarming, the film offers a guide on how to express emotion (particularly societally curtailed male emotion) with a softness that’ll have you beaming and weeping by the end.
Who has awards buzz?
Although winning back-to-back Best Actor Oscars for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump in the Nineties, Tom Hanks has not received a nomination for nearly two decades despite reliably strong work. Here’s hoping his compassionate turn as Mr Rogers can end this dry spell. Another possibility is the director Marielle Heller – whose sophomore film Can You Ever Forgive Me? was an Academy favourite this year (although the film-maker herself was criminally passed over) – but up against frontrunners including Tarantino (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Scorsese (The Irishman) and Bong Joon Ho (Parasite), it’s quite possible we’ll end up with another all-male director category. What a waste.
‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood’ is released in cinemas on 31 January 2020.
