A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

If you missed 2018’s “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”, (reviewed 7/4/18) joyously heartfelt documentary featuring the blessed Fred Rogers (1928-2003) directed by Morgan Neville, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”  will satiate your wonderment of a man whose goodness surged from his every pore; director Marielle Heller, without compromising Mr. Rogers mystique, concentrates on his empathetic skill to disinfect more than a child’s angst but an adult’s as well; Tom Hanks, with mannered perfection, is Fred Rogers and Matthew Rhys as “broken” journalist Lloyd Vogel work filmic magic as catalyst and chrysalis; there’s a rhythmic longing, poignancy that cascades throughout each enchanting sequence; exquisite pain tearfully slashes one’s core.

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” touches universal themes of childhood wounds, familial love/hate relationships; adored toys, crushed by time’s cruelty, housed eternally in the sacred real estate of one’s memory; pervasively, pungently, watching a remarkable “man among men” is the profundity of goodness, prescient Ben Johnson proclaimed that “good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times.” Fred Rogers was the embodiment of such a man.

FOUR STARS!!!!

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