We’ve torn each other to shreds, these last few years, and we’re in pain, and that is why I involuntarily convulsed during the new film, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”
This movie is far from what you might expect, and far from a Mr. Rogers biopic, per se. Truth is, this is far from any type of picture I expected. Know this: I am freighted with truckloads of Real New Yorker cynicism. My remarks are pointed, my aim is (usually) true. I DID expect this movie to be a weepy, Tom Hanks vehicle, with Hanks as a sainted, fatherly figure in a “Lassie Come Home” type of manipulative pap.
Wrong. Rather than corny crapola, here is a highly effective father/son saga for the ages that underscores JUST how much kindness, how much healing, we need, and will continue to need, once (if?) our national nightmare is over in 2020, with the help of our better angels.
Matthew Rhys plays Esquire feature writer Lloyd Vogel. You know Rhys from “The Americans” and this Welshman’s American accent — check that, his entire performance — is pitch perfect.
SPOILER ALERTS HERE. WIMPS CAN STOP READING NOW.
He, Rhys/Vogel, is assigned to write a short, fluffy, piece about the real-life king-of-calm, Fred Rogers. Chaos ensues.
Or, rather, self-awareness ensues. The Rhys character is us, the audience. And we are, he is, largely, broken. His dad, a bloated, boozy Chris Cooper (always excellent) was a stone cold prick to his family, a selfish, toxic, bastard. It was ME, ME, ME, just when his family needed him most.
Gee, sound familiar. We have tried to stuff President Chaos’ Kryptonite into lead-lined boxes in our hearts, but his poison has become OUR poison and it has leached into our souls. We’re in a fight for our country’s existence, and we’ve limped back to our corners, and our trainers have worked on our cuts, and administered smelling salts, but to no avail; we’re about to be TKO’d, yet we come out at the bell for the 15th round and keep flailing.
That’s Lloyd/Rhys, the story’s protagonist, when we meet him.
How many times have you flared up in the last four years? How many times have you daydreamed about popping someone right in the nose? Road-rage much? Light someone up on social media?
Can you feel your anger’s onset? Are you able to push in your psychic clutch and reroute your rage? More to the point: how do you feel after you explode? How has it affected your relationships with loved ones, or at work?
These are the areas “A Beautiful Day…” explores. What the Rhys character unearths for us, the audience, is that we as a people are more in need of superheroes than perhaps ever before. But not ones that “are faster than a speeding bullet”, or “more powerful than a locomotive”, or “able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”
Nope. Maybe, just maybe, we need superhuman kindness. Someone who listens. Cares. Encourages. Helps us to help ourselves and, in the process, each other.
Forget our roads and bridges: what we need RIGHT NOW is someone who can help us rebuild our societal infrastructure.
Anger is OK, Mr. Rogers said. It’s a perfectly valid emotion, but acting out is counterproductive. Martial arts experts know the power of restraint, which takes incredible strength. Lashing out is easy. The ability to identify and process the cause of the pain? That’s another story.
We’ve torn each other to shreds in recent years, and look what we’ve done to our country — to ourselves — in the process. If it’s corny to wish for kindness, for healing, for calm, then at this point I’d have to say the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye.
For once, let’s try a little tenderness. Fred Rogers would certainly approve.