Title: “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”

Release date: Nov. 22, 2019

Starring: Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson, Chris Cooper, Maryann Plunkett, Enrico Colantoni, Wendy Makkena, Tammy Blanchard, Noah Harpster, Carmen Cusack, Christine Lahti

Directed by: Marielle Heller

Run time: 1 hour, 48 minutes

Rated: PG

What it’s about: A jaded magazine writer is assigned a profile about children’s television personality Fred Rogers, and the two become friends as Rogers helps him see humanity in a more positive light.

How I saw it: How often these days do you sit quietly and ponder your life? How often do you think about the people who have shaped it? How often do you do that for a minute at a time, uninterrupted? How often do you even go 60 seconds without glancing at your phone?

The turning point and most powerful, poignant moment in director Marielle Heller’s serene, soulful look at the enduring influence of children’s television personality Fred Rogers, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” is one minute of silence. And it plays out in real time. Imagine that – one minute of sitting there, with no one on the screen making a sound and no action taking place. One minute seems like a long time these days, especially in a movie. It could have been an unnerving test of patience. But here, in a movie already more peaceful than anything else you will see in a theater, it not only works, it leaves an impression. It helps transform a nice enough movie into something special.

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is not just the story of TV’s Mister Rogers. It’s neither biopic nor documentary but a narrative film based on a true story that blends fact and fiction. Fred Rogers (played with perfect charm and energy by Tom Hanks) isn’t even on screen for parts of the film, and he is not the lead character. That would be Matthew Rhys as Lloyd Vogel, a magazine writer and fictional character based on real-life journalist Tom Junod, whose 1998 Esquire article “Can You Say … Hero?” is the basis for the screenplay written by Micah Fizerman-Blue and Noah Harpster.

Just as Junod in real life, Rhys’ Lloyd Vogel is an award-winning journalist with a reputation of angering and alienating his subjects and sources. Vogel, a cynical middle-aged man who is coming to grips with being a new father and also dealing with an unhappy past, is given an assignment he thinks is beneath him – a puff piece, 400-word profile of Fred Rogers that will be part of a “heroes” series. Vogel is not happy about the assignment but accepts it and arranges to meet Rogers in-person at the TV studio in Pittsburgh where Rogers’ show is produced.

It doesn’t take long for Vogel to realize he is the interviewee more than the interviewer. Rogers recognizes a tortured soul when he sees one. In the days before meeting Rogers, Vogel is involved in an altercation with his hard-drinking father, Jerry (Chris Cooper), at his sister’s third wedding, and he still is sporting a black eye when he arrives in Pittsburgh. Rogers seems to recognize that Vogel’s story about the injury being the result of a softball incident is a lie. Vogel’s issues stem from his troubled relationship with his father, who left the family while Lloyd’s mother was dying.

Which brings us to the minute of silence. Vogel and Rogers are sitting in a booth at a busy diner. Vogel still is skeptical about Rogers; he thinks the whole “nice guy” thing might be an act. Rogers senses this, and he asks Vogel to sit in silence with him and think about those who “loved us into being.” So, Vogel does. And then everyone else in the diner does. The moment changes something deep in Vogel. The last 20 seconds or so of the scene is a close-up shot of Rogers just sitting there with a slight, warm smile.

From then on, Vogel gets it. He tries to be a better husband to his wife, Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson), and a better dad. He slowly builds a relationship with his father, who by this time is dying in a hospital bed in his living room. Lloyd Vogel and Rogers become great friends (and that happened in real life with Rogers and Junod). The sudden transformation of Vogel’s attitude because of Rogers’ decency might seem simplistic, and it is. But this is Mister Rogers we are talking about, and that’s just what he did.

Vogel’s journey from selfish and bitter to loving husband/father/son is the stuff of standard-issue redemption drama, and at times that is what “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” threatens to become. But it is lifted by the performance of Hanks, a nice-guy icon playing a nice-guy icon. He seems as comfortable as a zip-up red sweater in the role. Because of how well-known he is and Rogers was, a concern is not being able to lose sight of it being Hanks playing Rogers. But that lasts about five seconds. Only when we are reminded of the real-life Rogers in a clip during the credits do we remember, “Oh, yeah. That was Tom Hanks.” Hanks is perfect in a scene in which Vogel turns the table on him when the two talk about Rogers’ sons. The moment is a reminder that Rogers was human just like the rest of us.

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” also benefits from moments of surrealness. Part of that is Rogers himself, and his show. The movie is patterned after Rogers’ PBS TV kids’ program, with toy cars, planes and cities indicating travel between scenes. And in the movie’s oddest moment, Vogel imagines himself on the set of the show, at first as his adult self but later as a puppet among show regulars Daniel Striped Tiger, King Friday XIII and Lady Aberlin (Maddie Corman).

Hard as this might be to fathom, some people did not like the real-life Rogers (just as some don’t like Hanks), and they likely won’t see this movie for the same reasons. To hardened souls, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” like Rogers, will seem too fantastical. Too cornball. Too soft. Too lightweight. Too out of touch. Too loving (Rogers and his show were criticized by those who prefer a tough-love approach for teaching children they are special and accepted unconditionally). Those are precisely the kind of people who need to see “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”

But if they won’t see it, and if they choose to view the world through a cynic’s eyes, Rogers, were he alive today, would undoubtedly offer an understanding smile and say, “And that’s OK.”

My score: 94 out of 100

Should you see it? Yes, you owe it to yourself to be reminded what kindness and empathy are all about.