Both Marielle Heller and Tom Hanks Bring Their A-Game For A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Though he's plastered all over the marketing, Tom Hanks' Fred Rogers is not the lead character of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Rogers is certainly a pivotal part of the movie and the visual trappings of his children's television show, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, are also reflected throughout the production as well. But those expecting this Marielle Heller directorial effort to be a traditional movie biopic about Fred Rogers or any other kind of film exclusively focusing on this man will be disappointed. Heller and writers Micah Fitzerman-Blue & Noah Harpster have concocted something much more unique for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood that may not put Fred Rogers center-stage but certainly is influenced by the man and especially his worldview.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? Is A Skillfully Subdued Triumph

Like the boys (A.K.A. Zac Efron and Corbin Bleau) in High School Musical 3: Senior Year, writer/director Marielle Heller is back after her outstanding 2015 directorial effort The Diary of a Teenage Girl. A movie bursting at the seams with authentic portrayals of all the complexities of a specific teenagers angst, anything she did as a follow-up to that excellent motion picture was gonna grab my attention. But the fact that such a sophomore directorial effort, entitled Can You Ever Forgive Me?, would also serve as a chance for Melissa McCarthy to flex her dramatic acting muscles meant this was a movie that's been very much on my radar for ages now (it probably would have been on my radar anyway though given how many times I've seen the trailer over the past seven months).