‘A Man Called Otto’ Review: Tom Hanks in a Predictable but Touching Portrait of Grief and Resilience

The poster for A Man Referred to as Otto invitations us to “fall in love with the grumpiest man in America.” However actually, was there any doubt, contemplating that he’s performed by Tom Hanks? The inevitable transformation of the title character from ill-tempered sourpuss to lovable softy wouldn’t generate a lot suspense anyway, because the movie is a remake of the hit 2015 Swedish movie A Man Referred to as Ove, tailored from the best-selling novel by Fredrik Backman. Add to that the truth that you may have the modern-day heir of Jimmy Stewart’s mantle enjoying the lead, and you may just about predict the movie’s each beat.

However that doesn’t it make any much less gratifying or transferring, because of its reliably efficient redemption arc, narrative construction and Hanks’ enduring enchantment. Not like the Swedish movie’s lead actor, Rolf Lassgard, who was genuinely intimidating in his curmudgeonliness, Hanks is rarely actually convincing as a perpetually aggrieved, hostile widower who takes his grief over his spouse’s demise out on the world. However you may sense how a lot enjoyment he’s getting out of enjoying in opposition to his widespread picture, and also you fortunately go alongside for the journey.

Set in an unnamed Rust Belt city that has clearly seen higher days (the film was filmed in Pittsburgh), this American model directed by Marc Forster (Discovering Neverland) intently follows its Swedish predecessor in most regards. Otto, who has lately been pushed out of his engineering managerial job, primarily spends his time scowling and grunting at anybody who has the temerity to cross his path and imposing the foundations of his gated neighborhood, which is managed by the type of real-estate firm whose smarmy consultant (Mike Birbiglia, in a task making little use of his comedian abilities) would have made an appropriate villain in a Frank Capra film.  

Sure, Otto is cranky, alright. He yells at a younger girl for letting her canine urinate on his garden, a supply truck driver for unauthorized parking, a neighbor for exercising too vigorously in a skintight outfit, and a stray cat for displaying up on his property. He’s even keen to spend treasured time arguing over being charged 33 cents an excessive amount of in a big-box ironmongery shop. He greater than lives as much as a bystander’s description of him as a “grumpy previous bastard.” However we quickly perceive the reason for his despair, which prompts him to make a number of unsuccessful suicide makes an attempt. He’s childless and alone, having lately misplaced his beloved spouse Sonya to most cancers.

His humanity solely emerges throughout his common visits to her grave, the place he makes it clear that he intends to affix her quickly. It’s additionally revealed in a collection of flashbacks to his youthful days, wherein the younger Otto (Truman Hanks, Tom’s son, bearing an uncanny resemblance to his previous man) has a meet-cute with Sonya (Rachel Keller, suitably endearing) when he boards a practice going within the fallacious route with a purpose to return a e book she’s dropped. We see the couple transferring into the house the place the middle-aged Otto nonetheless lives and making associates with their neighbors, after which Sonya getting pregnant and tragically dropping the newborn in a bus accident that leads to her being confined to a wheelchair.

Because the movie progresses, you end up counting the minutes till Otto will regain his soul. It begins to occur with the arrival of a younger household within the neighborhood, consisting of the feisty, very pregnant Marisol (Mariana Trevino, in a breakthrough efficiency), her klutzy husband (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, The Magnificent Seven), and their two younger daughters. At first, Otto resists Marisol’s good-natured efforts to be pleasant, however he finally finds himself getting concerned together with his new neighbors regardless of himself. You’ll be able to really feel his resistance melting when he takes the primary bites of a scrumptious home made meal she’s gifted him, though in his thank-you notice he can solely begrudgingly describe the meals as “attention-grabbing.” However it isn’t lengthy earlier than he’s babysitting the cute tykes and instructing Marisol drive.  

The storyline’s much less convincing components embrace Otto turning into a social media sensation after he’s filmed rescuing an aged man who’s fallen onto practice tracks. That permits him to take advantage of his newfound fame when the actual property firm makes an attempt to evict his longtime neighbors after they expertise main well being points. It’s the type of melodramatic plot contrivance that feels wholly pointless, as if screenwriter David Magee didn’t belief that the story of a grief-stricken man regaining his will to dwell would carry sufficient emotional weight.

However it’s onerous to thoughts an excessive amount of, because of Hanks’ completely modulated, understated efficiency — he’s actually transferring while you really feel Otto’s frost slowly beginning to thaw — and the welcome comedian moments that alleviate the movie’s extra heavy-handed elements. There’s a very great second when Otto winds up within the hospital after collapsing on the street and Marisol is gravely knowledgeable that his coronary heart is “too huge.” As an alternative of registering alarm, she collapses into hysterical laughter, with Otto having the grace to completely get the joke.

Though A Man Referred to as Otto by no means absolutely rises above its apparent plot machinations, director Forster fortunately applies a reasonably restrained, delicate strategy. The result’s a movie to which you in the end end up succumbing though you by no means cease being conscious that your heartstrings are being shamelessly pulled.