YNOT at the Movies

The beloved Tom Hanks is often regarded as one of the nicest guys in Hollywood, or even in the country. Can he be grumpy and angry? On screen perhaps? The director Marc Forster wants to put that hypothesis to test in "A Man Called Otto" (Sweden/USA 2022 | 126 min.). It turns out no matter how cranky Tom Hanks appears in the film as the titular character, he can never shake off that nicest guy image, especially in his heart, both on and off the screen.

As a remake of the Swedish comedy "A Man Called Ove" (En man som heter Ove | 2015), it is no surprise that this film doesn't have an original story, but its scenes are also unfortunately formulaic and predictable. It makes you wonder why they bothered making Tom Hanks frown for two hours on the big screen.

Otto (Tom Hanks), in his early 60s, is relative-less and unhappy. He is grieving for the recent death of his beloved wife Sonya, he is laid off from work, he is losing the battle to keep his small gated community in order, and he is lonely. He is ready to end his life once for all.

His suicide attempt is interrupted by a young family moving in across from his apartment. The Spanish-English speaking mother Marisol (Mariana Treviño) and her laid-back husband Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) have two young children, with another one on the way. Disregarding Otto's hostility, the friendly couple force themselves into Otto's solitary life, and become closer and closer to him as time goes by. Otto begins to reveal to Marisol how the young Otto (Truman Hanks, Tom Hank's son) and Sonya (Rachel Keller) met and fell in love back in the '60s. In return, Marisol provides the inspiration for Otto to keep on living, although Otto never stops acting cranky.

When Otto tries to buy a rope at a hardware store at the beginning of the film, that funny and believable scene is the best part of the film. Unfortunately, everything goes downhill from there. The film tirelessly stuffs one cliché after another, and none of them is believable. You probably would laugh at the scene of how Otto and Sonya met at a train station—not because it is funny, but because it is banal.

Many behaviors of the film's characters are very bizarre. Everyone in the movie seems to like banging on others' doors, as if they are gangsters who are coming to collect debts. And what's up with Otto's neighbor Jimmy (Cameron Britton)? Why does he walk funny around the neighborhood? The film also tries hard to be sentimental, but only fails at almost every attempt. It even throws in a stray cat to help, which only makes it look desperate.

The only good thing coming out of this film is the terrific performance by Mariana Treviño as the happy-go-lucky Marisol. Despite the implausible setups, she naturally delivered one scene after another at her best, and she is the only one who is somewhat believable in the film. You want to be her neighbor in a heartbeat.

Even though it may have been a nice thing to do, Tom Hanks should not have agreed to play the grumpy Otto. In the end, he did show us the kind soul deep inside the old man, but we already know that from the original Swedish film before watching this unnecessary remake.

"A Man Called Otto" opens in the San Francisco Bay Area on Friday, January 6, 2023.