A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: Comforting Imperfection

A movie we don't deserve, but certainty need right now. I beg you to watch with your family.

"All of us, at some time or other, need help. Whether we're giving or receiving help, each one of us has something valuable to bring to this world. That's one of the things that connects us as neighbors--in our own way, each one of us is a giver and a receiver." - Fred Rodgers

In times of international panic and economic uncertainty, it's easy to give in to our own anger. This state of quarantine and claustrophobic paranoia has too often caused us to turn on one another, and sometimes even turn on our own opinions of ourselves. The miraculous aspect of this movie is that the lessons that Mister Rodgers would preach to children are just as (if not more) applicable to us. The finer things in life - relationships, and the people we get to share them with - these are the things that Mister Rodgers would want you to appreciate right now. Because unlike relationships, people are finite. To that fact, this movie should stand as a beacon of hope for your faith in people and should act as a reminder of the lengths that small acts of compassion can go.

Director Michelle Heller paints an uplifting portrait of emotion and grief. Mister Rodgers is not the star of this movie, but he is the essence of it. His spirit becomes so apparent in this performance for the ages from Tom Hanks. We see how a man radiates selflessness everywhere he goes, whether it's him holding up production for 2 hours just to talk to a dying child with cancer, or him going out of his way to remember a simple stranger's name.

If you are not familiar with Mister Rodgers, your parents definitely are. He was a pioneer in children's educational television who created and starred in his show, Mister Rodgers' Neighborhood, which ran from 1968 to 2001. His television program primarily focused on teaching children how to handle their emotions, especially when it came to difficult topics like race, war, and divorce.

PLOT: The movie is based on the true story of the relationship formed between a Journalist for Esquire and the legend himself, Fred Rodgers. The movie focuses on the journalist, who's name in the film is Lloyd Vogel, and how he is a victim to his own past, allowing issues with his family and himself to affect his life. Like it's some sort of 6th sense, Fred Rodgers senses this and makes it his mission to help Lloyd.

Right off the bat, the undeniable thing about this film is that there was only one person on Earth who could play a man rightfully called the "nicest man who ever lived", and that's Tom Hanks. The nicest man in Hollywood playing the nicest man who ever lived, it's a match made in heaven.

This movie is something that will settle in your mind long after you turn the screen off. Mister Rodgers' teachings of kindness and forgiveness might seem like cliches being sown into the movie's plot, but hear out what he has to say. Does it seem off-putting? It will certainly seem that way at first. I mean sometimes it sounds like he's talking to adults like they're children. In truth, that's just how he talked, and his sole purpose wasn't just to help the children of the world, but to help adults whose lifelong issues had yet to fully grow up with them.

The best part of the movie was the final scene where we see Mister Rodgers wrap up filming an episode and wince as he moves to a piano in the corner of the studio. He smiles and says goodbye to everyone until he's alone. His smile, which dominates the screen up until that point, turns into pain. We don't know why he's hurting, as there is no dialogue that follows. Our hearts cannot bear to see a man, who's life mission was to spread kindness, appear to be upset. He begins to play the piano, a talent of his, before slamming his fingers on the keys violently in a brief fit of anguish.

It's an image of human imperfection, as it breaks down the imaginary wall the world had created for him. He isn't perfect, in fact a major theme of his show was the idea that nothing in life is perfect, except how we view ourselves - an idea that must be worked at, but can eventually be seen as perfect.

"Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now." - Fred Rodgers