First of all, let’s state for the record that Fred Rogers is an exceedingly strange man. Second, this movie (based on Tom Junod’s Esquire article about him) is very trippy — in a good way. (It reminded me of Birdman, another surreal movie.)
And of course, the movie’s not about Mister Rogers at all. Not really. It’s about Mister Roger’s life-changing effect on a very depressed and hostile journalist who’s assigned to write about Fred and the Neighborhood of Make Believe.
Speaking of the Neighborhood of Make Believe, one of the things that’s so trippy about the film is that there were several times when I couldn’t tell whether some people or houses were real — or the toy models that stand in for various urban locales.
Finally, it was nothing like I expected. (You know, your standard sappy formula.) But the reporter can’t get straight answers to his questions out of Fred, so in some respects, he finds his own answers. And that’s the most interesting story of all.
Rated 95% at Rotten Tomatoes — and those bastards don’t like anything!
