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This review originally ran during the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year.
We are republishing it as the film hits theaters this weekend.
Lloyd doesnt believe in benevolent patriarchs.
What is Mister Rogers the magical Christian to do?
He looks into the camera and tells us kids, Meet my friend Lloyd.
In other hands, this might be a horror movie (It Chapter 3?
But there might be more than softness at work.
Theres peer pressure to succumb.
Its not that Lloyd is a drag.
Hes just not as written here that special.
But as I write that I feel a twinge of shame.
Mister Rogers said everyone was special.
One of his weirder lyrics was, Everybodys fancy, everybodys fine.
Your bodys fancy and so is mine.
Yes, I know all the songs.
(Mister Rogers tells us youre a big fan of his!)
Perhaps if he had reached out, I wouldnt have become so judgmental myself.
I wouldnt have been a critic.
In this movie, Mister Rogers reduces Lloyd to a blubbering child and I envied the guy.
Directed by Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?
), the movie has a neat visual hook.
The cityscapes are cardboardlike, as inMister Rogers Neighborhood, and Mister Rogers introduces the film as Lloyds story.
Hes the emcee, like Jiminy Cricket.
while jauntily changing from a sports coat and shoes to a zip-up sweater and sneakers.
Hankss movements are a little jerkier than the real Fred Rogers, but this isnt an exact impersonation.
Hankss Mister Rogers is a better interviewer than Lloyd.
He knows his effect on people.
You might even call him subversive.
Imagine Joaquin Phoenix assigned to profile Fred Rogers thatsfunny.
Look, Im not dumping on Mister Rogers.
I told you I wrote him a fan letter.
I cried when he died.
I just wouldnt want him as my script doctor.
Hes a film critic.
Critics think if theyre too nice, people might think theyre not very smart.
But people who are nice are the smartest of all, dont you think?
They would like this movie very much, all the way through.
Can you say, One of the years best?
