A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

Direction: Marielle Heller
Country: USA

A flattering, good-natured crowd-pleaser, A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood has the heart in the right place, but doesn’t avoid some trivial sentimentality along the way. The film reconstructs the episodes involving real-life journalist Tom Junod and the popular children’s television presenter Fred Rogers. The former, portrayed by Matthew Rhys, sees his name changed to Lloyd Vogel in the film, while the versatile Tom Hanks fits perfectly in the role of Rogers, emulating his one-of-a-kind demeanor, in particular when shooting for the preschool program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, a television landmark from the 60’s. The film was inspired on Junod’s article “Can You Say… Hero?”, published in Esquire in 1998. Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster co-wrote the script to be handled by director Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl; Can You Ever Forgive Me?). 

Lloyd got hurt in the feelings and lives an angry life. His estranged father, Jerry (Chris Cooper), became the reason of his frustration since he left home when he was just a kid and his mother was dying of cancer. While keeping rejecting Jerry’s attempts to reconnect, Lloyd earns a reputation as a bitter, contemptuous writer. To his surprise, he is assigned a challenging profile of Mr. Rogers, a shockingly affable human being who overwhelms him every time he talks about anger management, emotional control, forgiveness, toleration, and how to generally deal with feelings. It’s excused to say that the interviewer becomes the interviewee, with Mr. Rogers dodging the questions to focus on the sensitive aspects that most unnerve the journalist.

Heller brings intense close-ups into her attentive filmmaking methods, delivering a heart-rendering tribute to a man of generosity that, although singular, struggles with a somewhat overempathetic posture varnished with a beatific gloss. Sometimes flowing like a dream, the film is perhaps too ambitious in its aims, sermonizing more than harmonizing. It’s worth seeing for the positive messages and Hanks' notable performance.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)

Direction: Marielle Heller
Country: USA

The director of The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Marielle Heller, surprises us once again with a charming biopic set in New York about the lonely and alcoholic celebrity biographer Lee Israel, here marvelously portrayed by Melissa McCarthy. The actress loads her performance with wittiness and dramatic instinct, finding an excellent ally in Richard E. Grant, who plays Lee’s homeless friend, Jack Hock.

Based on Israel’s 2008 memoir of the same name, Can You Ever Forgive Me? brings favorable result through the vibrant screenplay by Nicole Holofcener (Please Give; Enough Said) and James Whitty, the silky vocal jazz standards, the warm colors of Brandon Trost’s cinematography, and the tridimensional characters, whose idiosyncrasies hook you in.

Known for her bluntness, discourtesy, and difficult temper, Lee, 51, is being avoided by her agent, Marjorie (Jane Curtin), who stopped returning her phone calls. Obviously, the agent is unenthusiastic with Lee’s idea of writing a book about the film/radio star Fanny Brice. Thus, all her attention and energy are now turned to the far more popular, if less skilled, biographer Tom Clancy.

As a result of her dismissal from a part-time job, Lee finds herself in a complicated situation since she has been affected by writer’s block. Her rent is three months behind and her cat, which she likes better than people, is sick. That’s when she conjures up a brilliant, easy scheme that would allow her to make a living: to forge personal letters from deceased authors and selling them to book stores for a convenient price. She did it 400 times before being unmasked and her name put down on the bookshops’ alert list. Even under these circumstances, she refuses to give up from the easy life, relying on Jack to continue the stratagem.

In the end, it’s impossible not to feel sympathy for these disconsolate crooks, who contribute humor and sadness in equal measures for the sake of the film. Heller’s expeditious direction and consistent storytelling potentiate both the gravitas and the titillation of an amusing biopic.