Tom Hanks

Hanks isn't quite believable as a suicidal widower who finds redemption in Marc Forster's three-hankie comedic drama.

That she’s able to prop the film up on her formidable shoulders is even more remarkable considering that A Man Called Otto marks one of the least effective uses of Hanks’ talent. Except Eastwood’s films are often about people who buck the system whereas Hanks’ films often confirm the righteousness of those systems and (usually) the men who fight to keep them in place. Their relationship, which begins on a train and takes a melodramatic turn on a bus, is wholly unbelievable which makes Otto’s undying love for her an article of faith not effective storytelling. Otto’s savior, the one who’ll annoy, needle and harass him until he bares his soul, is his new neighbor, Marisol, played by the sparkling Mariana Treviño in a career-launching turn. Yes, Otto is a contentious grouch and recent widower whose list of grievances is as long as his temper is short. Plus, we know Otto will eventually be shaken from his spiritual stupor and the tragic story of his past will be revealed.

Mark Forster's A Man Called Otto is tonally all over the place, but is at its best when it focuses on the friendship at the center of this story.

Naturally, A Man Called Otto is at its best when the coldness of Otto and the love of Marisol play off each other, as we watch this friendship blossom. It’s easy when watching A Man Called Otto to feel like Otto: frustrated by most of what's going on, but with brief glimmers of the beauty within the world around you. But despite the name, the real star of A Man Called Otto is Treviño as Marisol, who right away doesn't put up with Otto’s crap and handles him with both sternness and love—the way Sonya also did. It’s just one of a few silly details that break the humanity that Magee is attempting to cultivate in this story. Otto is a man that is mad at the world. Throughout A Man Called Otto, we also get to see Otto’s memories of when he was younger (played by Truman Hanks) and getting to know Sonya (Rachel Keller).

Director Marc Forster and screenwriter David Magee ("Finding Neverland") reunite for the American movie adaptation of Fredrik Backman's novel, "A Man Called ...

Smothering the story of a suicidal man in tirelessly chipper sidekicks feels more jarring than complex, regarding his troubles as something with a quick fix. Forster has no faith that his audience can appreciate the story of a true bastard who rediscovers a reason to live. Likewise, the truncating of a backstory between Otto and his elderly neighbors kills the payoff of setups about vehicular rivalries and even the film's heartwarming climax. Frankly, A Man Called Otto is insulting. And with them, gone too is much of the explanation for why our protagonist is such a sour curmudgeon, the kind of guy who constantly is on the alert for thieves or tricksters. But as this feel-good dramedy about an old grouch with a heart of gold unfurled before me, it became clear Hanks is not the problem.

Working from the Swedish novel and film “A Man Called Ove,” Marc Forster gussies up this sentimental tale of the perils of male self-reliance.

Directed by Marc Forster (“Finding Neverland,” “Monster’s Ball”) from a screenplay by David Magee, “A Man Called Otto” is an unsurprising Hollywood makeover of a sweet and heartwarming story. It would be far more fun to see him take a real swing out of his comfort zone, but the world might not be ready for such a risk from America’s favorite nice guy. When he returns to his cookie-cutter home on a gated cul-de-sac, he calls off the gas and electricity and drills a hole in the ceiling to secure a makeshift noose. Treviño is engaging and charismatic as the gregarious Marisol, playing off Otto’s gruffness with an endless stream of nonsequiturs and conversational gymnastics. Unable to resist his scolding urges, he walks right into the cheerful chaos of the young family moving in across the street. No, when Tom Hanks wants to really throw a sour wrench onto his all-American good-guy bread and butter, he has to play a grumpy old man.

In a latest interview with PEOPLE, Wilson, who shares two sons with Hanks, addressed the lessons she'd learned about motherhood and marriage. “I slowed down my ...

Meanwhile, on the work front, Wilson has shifted her focus to singing and songwriting. If both of us were working and not home, my kids would have been affected.” Gushing over Hanks, Wilson mentioned, “Tom and I have always been supportive of each other and what we do.”

Oscar-winner Tom Hanks plays the title role 'A Man Called Otto,' a remake of a hit Swedish film about a curmudgeon learning to embrace life again.

It starts to happen with the arrival of a young family in the neighborhood, consisting of the feisty, very pregnant Marisol (Mariana Trevino, in a breakthrough performance), her klutzy husband (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, The Magnificent Seven), and their two young daughters. It’s also revealed in a series of flashbacks to his younger days, in which the young Otto (Truman Hanks, Tom’s son, bearing an uncanny resemblance to his old man) has a meet-cute with Sonya (Rachel Keller, suitably endearing) when he boards a train going in the wrong direction in order to return a book she’s dropped. But it’s hard to mind too much, thanks to Hanks’ perfectly modulated, understated performance — he’s truly moving when you feel Otto’s frost slowly starting to thaw — and the welcome comic moments that alleviate the film’s more heavy-handed aspects. That allows him to exploit his newfound fame when the real estate company attempts to evict his longtime neighbors after they experience major health issues. Otto, who has recently been pushed out of his engineering managerial job, mainly spends his time scowling and grunting at anyone who has the temerity to cross his path and enforcing the rules of his gated neighborhood, which is controlled by the sort of real-estate company whose smarmy representative (Mike Birbiglia, in a role making little use of his comic talents) would have made a suitable villain in a Frank Capra movie. Although A Man Called Otto never fully rises above its obvious plot machinations, director Forster thankfully applies a fairly restrained, subtle approach. He more than lives up to a bystander’s description of him as a “grumpy old bastard.” But we soon understand the cause of his despair, which prompts him to make several unsuccessful suicide attempts. He yells at a young woman for letting her dog urinate on his lawn, a delivery truck driver for unauthorized parking, a neighbor for exercising too vigorously in a skintight outfit, and a stray cat for showing up on his property. His humanity only emerges during his regular visits to her grave, where he makes it clear that he intends to join her soon. Unlike the Swedish film’s lead actor, Rolf Lassgard, who was genuinely intimidating in his curmudgeonliness, Hanks is never truly convincing as a perpetually aggrieved, hostile widower who takes his grief over his wife’s death out on the world. [Tom Hanks](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t/tom-hanks/)? He’s even willing to spend precious time arguing over being charged 33 cents too much in a big-box hardware store.

The sincere new dramedy starring Tom Hanks as a widower at the end of his rope reveals just what is missing from so many recent Hollywood studio ...

The tender message of hopefulness and spiritual renewal is a welcome tonic as the year comes to a close. It is not meant as faint praise to say that “A Man Called Otto” is nice. [“Til You’re Home.”](https://youtu.be/-fEXoVK1hss) In flashback scenes, young Otto is played by one of Hanks’ and Wilson’s children, Truman Hanks. She barges into Otto’s orderly life and brings a bit of chaos with her, inserting a much-needed liveliness into the movie as well. The film has an easygoing, please-like-me quality that somehow never comes off as desperate but instead gives it a reassuring quality, like a mug of warm tea. [“Elvis,”](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-06-23/elvis-review-baz-luhrmann-austin-butler) which found him working against an accent and prosthetics and a fanciful villainous characterization. These should be the basic building blocks of Hollywood moviemaking and yet here we are, with “A Man Called Otto” feeling special for being a winsome dramedy with some effective moments of tearjerking tenderness. Otto seems at first to be a rigid, stuck-in-his-ways old man similar to the type Clint Eastwood has played recently in films such as “Gran Torino,” “The Mule” and “Cry Macho,” men who must learn to overcome their prejudices. He is nevertheless endlessly aggravated by others for a perceived lack of knowledge or abilities. Even a self-styled “social media journalist” won’t leave him alone after when Otto, who had intended to throw himself onto the tracks, saves a man from being struck by a train. A genuine movie star is allowed to radiate charisma and charm, and all the performances have character nuance and emotional depth. Once he is back at his modest, meticulously kept row house, it is revealed that Otto plans to kill himself, but life keeps getting in the way.