A Man Called Otto

Hollywood produces many dramas and probably as many comedies, but when you throw both genres together in a single film, what comes out of it is poignancy, humor and a heartfelt story which is called "A Man Called Otto". Certainly there have been other drama/comedy films made, but this film definitely allows the audience to subtly see a transformation Otto;s life when others have been thrusted into his.

Based on the critical acclaimed comical bestseller, "A Man Called Ove", this tells the story of Otto Anderson (Tom Hanks), a curmudgeon widower whose only joy comes from criticizing and judging his exasperated neighbors. When a lively young family moves in next door, he meets his match in quick-witted and very pregnant Marisol (Mariano Trevino), leading to an unexpected friendship that will turn his world upside down. Through Marisol, her husband Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), Jimmy (Cameron Britton), Anita (Juanita Jennings) and Malcolm (Mack Bayda), Otto begrudgingly and slowly starts seeing life through somewhat different glasses. 

Others to round out the cast are Rachel Keller as Sonya, Christina Montoya as Luna, Alessandra Perez as Abbie, Peter Lawson Jones as Reuben, Kailey Hyman as Barb and Truman Hanks as young Otto Anderson.

This was sequenced well, paced and staged with expertise by Marc Forster ("Loungers" '95, "Everything Put Together" 2000, "Monster's Ball" '01, "Finding Neverland" '04, "Stay" '05, "Stranger Than Fiction" '06, "The Kite Runner" '07, "Quantum of Solace" '08, "Machine Gun Preacher" '11, "World War Z" '13, "All I See Is You" '16,"Christopher Robin" '18) plus TV and a short. The subtle transformation in which Hanks had to create was pure genius, not only on the part of Hanks and his incredible acting ability, but for Forster to be able to extract those subtle nuances of emotion to pull off Hanks even being able to make that transition was amazing. Even Marisol had to transition from being curios and perplexed by Otto's anger to seeing the person in Otto that Otto himself couldn't see. And Forster had to tie all this into a film that worked because the character development was handle as such. It was executed well by writer David Magee ("Finding Neverland" '04, "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" '08, "Life of Pi" '12, "Mary Poppins Returns" '18, "Lady Chatterley's Lover" '22) based on the novel "A Man Called Ove" by Fredrik Backman and the film, "A Man Called Ove" by Hannes Holm. After seeing the trailer on this film, I felt that Otto would've been a fairly simple character development in which to write a screenplay about, however after seeing this, I came to realize that Otto was, indeed, a complex  individual with an array of emotions he was carrying since his wife's demise. Anger wasn't his only issue; other emotions seem to go off on a tributary with lives of their own. This takes a very talented writer to capture this. Really, other than a couple of very small slow places in the story, this script was simply amazing. Tom Hanks gave his usual dependable performance that he can and does so well and certainly Mariana Trevino as Marisol was incredible as the neighbor to pull Otto out of his funk. 

Certainly if you're a Hanks fan you'll revel with this as with all of his films, but even if not, the character of Otto is an intriguing character in and of itself--practically a case study in humankind. It's funny and sad but in all the right places.

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                                          Rated: PG-13                                          127mins.