Directing: A-
Acting: A
Writing: A
Cinematography: A-
Editing: A-

If there is a male equivalent of “America’s Sweetheart,” it might just be Tom Hanks who fills that role. And if anyone were born to play the role of Fred Rogers, the beloved PBS children’s show host from Pittsburgh, it’s also Tom Hanks. This casting choice for what is, in the end, a supporting role in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, is a stroke of genius.

And, that’s in spite of Hanks not particularly impersonating Rogers in any specific way. He is still very Hanks-ian, but, dress him up in that signature cardigan and comb his salt-and-pepper hair the same way, and he embodies the man’s spirit effortlessly.

It’s only been a year and a half since the release of the wonderful documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, a film whose director noted that Fred Rogers reportedly stated that any movie about his life would be incredibly boring. And in less than two years, he has been proven wrong twice over, in both documentary and fictionalized form. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is anything but boring, and anyone with memories of his show from their childhood would do well to have several tissues handy.

They would even if they did not, like myself, ever watch his program as a kid. I did not even become aware of Mr. Rogers until I was a somewhat older child, more inclined to write off Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood as corny and dopey; it would be decades before I came to understand how widely beloved the man and his show really were.

The show aired between 1968 and 2001, with one three-year break between 1976 and 1979, the end of that run being only three years after the setting of this film. In the story here, Rogers himself actually does not take center stage, which actually works well, lest he overwhelm the viewer with emotion—which is apt to happen anyway. Instead, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is the story of how Fred Rogers impacted the life of Esquire biographer Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys). Vogel is a fictionalized version of Esquire biographer Tom Junod, who really did publish a profile of Rogers in 1998; he is reportedly very happy with the film, but it does take enough liberties to make it merely “inspired by a true story.”

It captures the essence of these two men, and when it comes to motion picture storytelling, little else really matters. Ultimately, even with frame of reference from my own childhood, I loved nearly everything about this movie. The editing and cinematography are both particularly clever, giving both the feel and the framework of Mr. Rogers’ Neighorhood’s old episodes. It even begins with Hanks as Rogers, hosting the show, introducing us, the viewers of the movie, to Lloyd, his friend and the protagonist of this story.

All of the “exterior shots” of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood—Pittsburgh or New York City skylines, a plan taking off from an airport—are done with miniature models, in the style of the old show. It’s as disarming as it is utterly charming. There are no stylized flourishes here beyond that, and that’s a huge part of what makes it work: what we see onscreen is very straightforward and practical in terms of how it is filmed, just as Rogers’s show had been. There is just one sequence I would consider inessential, a dream in which Lloyd finds himself in miniature and on the set of one of the shows during filming. It’s odd in a way that doesn’t quite integrate seamlessly into the rest of the film’s narrative. But, truly, that is the closest I come to any one genuine criticism of this film.

Lloyd has a wife (Susan Kelechi Watson), who, when she learns about the profile he’s doing, says to him, “Please don’t ruin my childhood.” At that point she becomes the avatar for every moviegoer who remembers Mr. Rogers from their own childhood. They have a newborn son, and Lloyd is strugging to make amends with his estranged father (Chris Cooper, a master at playing complicated men), which becomes the key to the whole plot of Lloyd’s story with Rogers. We also briefly see Rogers’s wife, Joanne (Maryann Plunkett), whose short screen time is put to very insightful use. I would loved to see more of her.

Best of all, A Beautiful Day in the Neighorhood finds ways to underscore how Fred Rogers was a work in progress himself, an imperfect man just doing his best to do right by the world, particularly with helping children learn to understand and cope with their feelings. Honestly, last year’s documentary gets slightly deeper into exactly how flawed he was, and even then it could not dig up a whole lot. Being regarded as “a living saint” is a lot to live up to, and Tom Hanks is a superb conduit for conveying that sentiment with subtlety and humility. This movie doesn’t really portray any of his imperfections or flaws specifically, because it doesn’t have to. Hanks plays him as a man who simply knows those flaws are there, but he continues to do his best, without necessarily realizing that his best is far better than most people’s.

I probably spent about a quarter of this movie quietly shedding tears. It’s truly, deeply emotionally affecting, without ever quite feeling emotionally manipulative. Just as last year’s documentary did, it brings to light how Fred Rogers was one of a kind, an anomaly as much in his own time as he would be today. He passed away in 2003, but the telling of his story (or stories) could not be coming at a better time.

*One of those times when earnestness and sincerity are worth your while.*

Overall: A-