The run-up to awards season is now in full swing, and one of the frontrunners to pick up a few gongs in February next year is Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, after strong showings at the Toronto and London film festivals. We now won’t be getting the film in the UK until the end of January, but at least there’s a new trailer to whet our appetite…
Taking its cue from real-life events, A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood stars Matthew Rhys (The Americans) as award-winning journalist Lloyd Vogel – a fictional character based on actual reporter Tom Junod. Vogel begrudgingly accepts an assignment to write an Esquire magazine profile of beloved US television icon Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks), host of the long-running preschool series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Vogel is cynical at first, but his encounter with Rogers gradually changes his perspective on things, in a film that promises the sort of life-affirming feels that Oscar goes crazy for.
You can watch the latest trailer for the film below…
The film has some impressive talent behind the scenes as well as in front of the camera: the script, by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, appeared among the 2013 ‘Black List’ of Hollywood’s best unproduced screenplays, while director Heller won plaudits for her Sundance-premiering debut The Diary Of A Teenage Girl and had an awards-season practice run earlier this year with her Oscar-nominated true-life drama, Can You Ever Forgive Me?.
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood opens in UK cinemas on 31 January 2020. In the meantime, you can read our review of the film from the 2019 London Film Festival here.
