Page 30 - AT

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Tuesday 19 November 2019
Hanks anchors a lovely Mister Rogers tale for adults

By LINDSEY BAHR protagonist, journalist Lloyd The film introduces Lloyd at
Associated Press Vogel (Matthew Rhys), us- a particularly unstable mo-
Director Marielle Heller ing his “picture window” ment. He’s got a newborn
frames “ A Beautiful Day in that all-too-familiar liv- son with his wife, Andrea
in the Neighborhood ” as ing room where he’s just (an understated and excel-
if it were an episode of changed into his sneakers lent Susan Kelechi Watson),
“Mister Rogers’ Neighbor- and sweater. It’s even rat- and his long-estranged
hood,” with miniature sets ed PG. father (Chris Cooper) has
of cars and bridges to il- But “A Beautiful Day” is not suddenly started trying to
lustrate New York and Pitts- really a children’s story at come back into his life. It’s
burgh. Mr. Rogers, played all. It’s a story about a man under these high-pressure
with clear-eyed purpose who suffers from the doubly circumstances that his edi-
by Tom Hanks, introduces impossible combination of tor (Christine Lahti) assigns
the audience to the film’s being an adult and an in- him to write a “small piece”
about Fred Rogers for the
This image released by Sony Pictures shows Tom Hanks as Mister magazine’s “heroes issue.”
Rogers in a scene from "A Beautiful Day In the Neighborhood," in Lloyd scoffs at what he
theaters on Nov. 22. considers a demeaning as-
Associated Press signment. He’s there to be
vestigative journalist. In oth- not part of Junod’s life at all an investigative journalist
er words, he’s the person (like getting into a fistfight and the host of a cheesy
least likely to be charmed with his father at his sister’s children’s show is, he thinks,
by the straightforward sin- wedding, neither of which below him. Andrea even
cerity of someone like Fred happened). But as Junod asks her husband, knowing
Rogers. writes in The Atlantic this what kind of writer he is, to
The film is loosely based month, the film “seems like please not ruin her child-
on Tom Junod’s article a culmination of the gifts hood.He remains skeptical
“Can You Say...‘Hero’?” that Fred Rogers gave me even upon meeting Fred
which appeared in Esquire and all of us, gifts that fit and goes back to his editor
Magazine in November of the definition of grace be- to ask for more time, saying
1998. Junod has said that cause they feel, at least in that he “just doesn’t think
spending time with the my case, undeserved.” he’s for real.” Sure, part of
then 70-year-old changed Essentially, Fred Rogers’ les- you is probably thinking
him. Cynical at first, the two sons can apply to adults Lloyd a monster. But con-
formed a friendship — Ju- too. And “A Beautiful Day sider Lloyd’s point of view
nod’s first ever with a sub- in the Neighborhood” spins too: Fred uses puppets
ject — that would last until its magic to show (not just during his interview and
Rogers’ death in 2003. tell) us how, no matter if deflects quite a bit on the
The similarities stop there it’s mostly a fiction from more pressing questions,
and the film veers off in its the minds of screenwriters often diverting and asking
own direction, adding dra- Micah Fitzerman-Blue and about his interviewer in-
ma and elements that are Noah Harpster. stead of answering.q

Czech filmmaker Vojtech Jasny dies at age 93

Associated Press
PRAGUE (AP) — Vojtech
Jasny, a filmmaker who be-
longed to the new wave
of Czechoslovak cinema
in the 1960s, has died. He
was 93. Slovacke divadlo,
a theatre he frequently vis-
ited, said that Jasny died
Friday. A family representa-
tive confirmed his death to
the CTK news agency.
From the 1950s, Jasny made
some 50 movies in Czecho- In this May 10, 2016, file photo, Vojtech Jasny, Czech film
slovakia and later in the director and scriptwriter, poses for photographers in Prague,
West when he emigrated Czech Republic.
after the 1968 Soviet-led in- Associated Press
vasion of Czechoslovakia. Festival in 1969. In the 1980s, a five-film documentary
His most famous film, “All Jasny settled in the United project commissioned by
My Good Countrymen,” States, lecturing at Colum- Steven Spielberg’s Survivors
from 1968, about the bru- bia University. He later re- of the Shoah Visual History
tal changes in the country turned home. Foundation.
under communism, was Jasny’s “Hell on Earth,” fea- Jasny’s father was killed
banned in his homeland. turing testimonies of Holo- in the Nazi death camp
It won the best director caust survivors, was part of Auschwitz during World
award at the Cannes Film of 2002’s “Broken Silence,” War II.q