You’ll know from the first frame that you’re being manipulated, so decide early whether you can go with it. I’m glad I stuck it out because it ended up being on my Top Ten list for the year – but it took a while to break me of my Hallmark Channel defenses.
Based on the loved and lauded Swedish film ‘A Man Called Ove’ from 2016, Tom Hanks (with the name changed to Otto) is the curmudgeonly Karen of a tidy neighborhood of townhouses. He’s the kind of grumpy, old-ish man shaking his fist at the sky and making sure that the neighbors have the proper parking permits displayed.
As the film opens, he’s about to put to use the length of rope he’s just bought – planning to hang himself. It becomes a running gag (you’ll pardon the expression) that he’s going to die with that rope around his neck…if only things would stop interrupting him.
Enter a cute family who are moving in across from him. They’re so cute and innocent and cuddly that you just know they’ll be his lifesavers. You also know, as soon as you see an annoying kitty cat that won’t stay out of his garage that he’s about to reluctantly make a new feline friend.
It’s That Kind of Movie
Directed by Marc Forster, who knows how to step right up to the line of sentimentality before taking a tiny step back, Hanks’s mostly one-note performance is interspersed with the young Otto. Like Albert Finney in Scrooge, glimpse a young Otto in love with a beautiful woman who loves him back.
We also see layers gradually peeling away, showing us how Otto went from blah, but reliable career, to bah, humbug. Being honest, there’s enough heartbreak along the path to turn anyone into a Grinch.
If you guess all the reveals along the way, so what? That’s what I told myself. Just because a story is predictable doesn’t mean it can’t be watchable. And as for the Hallmark Channel? That description usually carries a negative connotation.
But, you know, my Mom watches those films because she wants comfort from a viewing, not big surprises and twists. The more I pictured Mom watching this film and liking it, the more I began to like it myself.
Maybe my heart grew three sizes that day. Or maybe – in the midst of watching dozens of films for awards consideration, I was open to just taking a gentle ride.
A Man Called Otto | Rated PG-13 | 2 hours | In Limited release and Expanding Wide January 13th
