Hitting theaters on November 22, 2019–just in time for Thanksgiving–A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is the Fred Rogers biopic starring Tom Hanks as the one, the only, the pure-as-can-be Mr Rogers.
The film focuses on the relationship between Rogers and Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a journalist writing a profile on the smiling star of Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood. The film would appear to be based on the Esquire piece by Tom Junod, written in the late-’90s.
With last year’s Won’t You Be My Neighbor? being such an easy-watch as well as a great documentary (our own Jesse Lab was a big fan), it’s clear that yes, Mr Rogers makes as good of a subject as he does an entertainer. The popularity of last year’s documentary by Morgan Neville will no doubt inadvertently promote A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood; I connected many of the images in the trailer here immediately to the real footage I saw in Neighbor, which is an incredibly satisfying thing, and sells the biopic as authentic.
With Hanks starring and Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Can You Ever Forgive Me?) directing, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood should be a perfectly sweet, charming film for the Thanksgiving holiday later this year.
