'A Beautiful Day...' legit made me want to be a better person

I was skeptical going into the awards bait drama A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, there had already been one stellar documentary about the late children's entertainer-educator Fred Rogers and Tom Hanks is such a unmistakable megastar I doubted that he could adequately disappear into the role.

Boy was I wrong. Hanks is transcendent in a supporting role that just might win him a third Oscar. What he conveys, brilliantly, is the mighty effort Rogers made at all times to be as kind and sensitive as possible to every person he meets. It is not a facade but it is a lot of work. The benefit? Is a life touched by grace, one where you don't hurt others or yourself as much as possible.

The movie surrounding him almost can't live up to the stature of Hanks and it doesn't quite. Matthew Rhys is fine and shows glimmers of a sense of humor he rarely got to deploy in The Americans -- but I couldn't help thinking that a bigger star in his role (Robert Downey, Jr. would have been perfect in the part) would have made me a little bit more engaged in his domestic drama.

That being said, a subplot involving his estranged father (played with great emotional gravitas by the always underrated Chris Cooper) did have me bawling throughout.

I do wish the film maintained a more consistent tone. Sometimes it goes for the surreal -- with mixed results -- but when it forces us to sit in a reality and the awkward semi-nuttiness of Rogers' world, like in a scene where the iconic man tries to engage Rhys with puppets or another sublime moment where he asks for a minute to contemplate all the love that makes our lives possible -- it's phenomenal.

In the latter moment in particular, the authority of Hanks' performance comes through. He's not doing an impression here-- he doesn't look much like Mister Rogers and his cadence is still very much his own -- but he does fuse his spirit with the legend. I came in wondering if he could pull it off and I left thinking no one else can play this role. There is a startling moment -- which some people might call cornball -- when Hank's warm blue eyes lock on you in the audience, the film is shooting for the fences here and asking us to embrace childlike wonder the way he does.

None of this should work on someone given to misery like me, but I was deeply moved by it. Like so many biopics it doesn't really revolutionize the form but it wisely presents Rogers at the remove he would have preferred. There's no interest in explaining how he became the man he is but more in how does he live the way he does.

Whatever its flaws, and the movie has a few, it made me want to be a better person. It made me think about death, true, but in turn it made me think about the way I live my life -- and there's not many movies you can say that about, and I'll be grateful to the movie for that.

There's no big stakes here -- the movie centers around the completion of an Esquire profile -- and I'm a little incredulous about how accurate the film's timeline is -- but this is still a lovely, gentle movie that has several moments of genuine beauty in it.

Like it's last shot(s) which resonated with me long after the credits roll. As far as Oscar movies go, I am more of an Irishman guy -- that film's rumination on a life lived poorly his closer to home for me -- but I can appreciate this film on the other end of spectrum, one that elevates the goodness in people at a time when we need it the most.