With perhaps the year’s first serious Oscar contender, Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” set for release this weekend, studios are scrambling to get trailers for their more serious-minded forthcoming films in front of the grown-up eyeballs that will be watching Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and company. Soon, we’ll see trailers for the Nicole Kidman-led literary adaptation “The Goldfinch,” the racially explosive drama “Queen & Slim” and the Harriet Tubman biopic “Harriet.”
But first it’s “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” Quentin Tarantino and Fred Rogers may be strange bedfellows, but we live in interesting times. A biopic of the host of the long-running kiddie show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” might seem meant for the rugrats crowd, but “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” aims squarely at the discerning adults who drove director Morgan Neville’s Rogers-themed documentary, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” to a stunning $22.8 million gross last year.
The new drama stars Tom Hanks — otherwise known as the nicest man in American history this side of Rogers — and he appears to nail every aspect of his character, from his gently lilting voice to the careful way he put on his red cardigan and blue tennis shoes.
The affecting trailer hits many of the same emotional notes as the documentary did. Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”) plays a cynical journalist who’s assigned to write a profile of the often-mocked Rogers and finds himself surprised to discover a hero who represents the best of America. The screenplay, by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, is based on a 1998 Esquire article by Tom Junod.
Directed by Marielle Heller, who last year plumbed the darker depths of the human psyche in Melissa McCarthy’s forgery drama, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” will be coming to your ’hood on Nov. 22, just in time for Thanksgiving.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.