Audiences crave predictability in measured doses.
We want the superhero to save the day and the boy to both meet and stay with the girl in a rom-com. So when we see the curmudgeonly antihero in “A Man Called Otto” we don’t want him to stay curmudgeonly for long.
Formulas matter, but screenplays need something extra to make them magical. The classic quote, “I’ll have what she’s having,” from “When Harry Met Sally” jumps to mind.
Tom Hanks’ “Otto” offers little that is fresh or rewarding. It’s a curdled lineup of tropes begging us to like them. The Oscar winner allows himself to be nasty at times, a welcome change from his standard screen image.
What’s missing is a story that has even a mild relationship with reality.
Hanks’ Otto Anderson is at the end of his rope. Literally.
He’s been nudged out of his decades-long job, pummeled by life’s inequities and widowed after years of blissful marriage.
And he’s taking it out on everyone he meets.
Otto dresses down the local shop clerk for a minor error, mocks anyone who doesn’t follow the precise rules of the road and is so curt with neighbors you wonder why they don’t take a swing at him.
You might. Trust us.
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Hanks, he of the two Oscars and Jimmy Stewart-like reputation, overplays his hand at the jump. It’s the first sign of storytelling trouble, but it’ll soon have company.
Somehow, some way, his neighbors put up with Otto. Maybe they need him to fix their radiators or give them a ride to the store. They genuflect to his old-school wisdom, swallowing hard as he defecates all over them.
Awwww.
In Otto’s meager defense, he’s contemplating suicide as the story opens. He’s a square peg in a societal round hole, and he’s had enough. That’s until he meets the new neighbors, a Mexican couple with two adorable girls who adore Otto for no reason besides it tells them so in the script.
Marisol (Mariana Trevino) speaks in a thick Spanish accent except when she doesn’t and, in a storytelling first, she’s a recent immigrant who happens to be a great cook!
Her husband (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) would need a year of tutelage under Jordan Peterson to rise to beta male status. He can’t parallel park a car and calls an Allen wrench an “Alvin” wrench.
You know, like the chipmunk! These are the laughs, folks.
Other wacky neighbors include a perpetually grinning man who desperately wants to hang with Otto. Wouldn’t you? He sounds like a party.
The film’s worst moment, and it has some stiff competition, finds Otto dressing down a hospital clown before the conflict gets physical.
Really.
Another face on the block belongs to Malcolm (Mack Bayda), a local trans youth. Now, you might expect an old-school soul like Otto to be put off by such a neighbor. Otto hails from a different generation, and the modern world flummoxes him.
That kind of reaction can’t be told, according to Woke Storytelling 101, because Otto is ultimately the film’s hero. So Otto quickly warms to Malcolm and treats him like one of the family.
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We slowly learn the hardships Otto faced over the decades in an endless series of flashbacks. It’s like “The Notebook Part II,” but even more cloying. Otto’s love story is so idealized you half expect the couple to run towards each other in slow motion, with a Carpenters ballad playing behind them.
There’s an interesting commentary staring at us throughout “Otto.” The younger generation has lost its way, unable to drive a manual car, fix basic items and make sense of their chaotic lives.
Otto nails all of the above, and he finds salvation in doing so despite his cranky complaints.
It’s the film’s sole pleasure.
“Otto,” based on the Swedish film “A Man Called Ove” inspired by the best-seller, features a final act so predictable you could turn your head away from the screen and scribble what happens down on your popcorn box with near-perfect accuracy.
Director Marc Foster falls down a rabbit hole of twee and never finds his way back home. Foster’s resume has some impressive moments (“World War Z,” “Stranger Than Fiction”), but this kind of sticky sentiment proves outside his grasp.
HiT or Miss: “A Man Called Otto” snuck in at the last moment for 2022 Oscar consideration, but it stands a better chance at a Razzie or two.
All they had to do was make the character gay or black and it would have won an Oscar. I thought it was a good movie. I agree… a little predictable but heartwarming.
I read this review, and then an article by John Nolte about how this movie proved that audiences still crave movies that don’t preach at you. So I had high hopes, but honestly, I hated it.
Otto doesn’t just consider suicide, he tries it 4 times, and the movie is very graphic with showing it:
1. A noose around his neck with him choking.
2. Sitting in car in garage with hose in the window.
3. Lying down on train tracks.
4. Shotgun under his chin, ready to pull trigger.
We have all gone through crap in our lives, and lost loved ones, but Otto’s only answer is suicide. Seems harsh, and stupid. And, if his wife was so great and so full of love, why didn’t some of that love for others rub off on Otto? He seemed very selfish to me. Also, if Otto plans to kill himself to be with his wife, shouldn’t there have been some sort of discussion about the belief in the afterlife through a religion or whatever, so suicide would make sense?
Tom Hanks is a great actor, so his interaction with the neighbors was amusing at times. But, then to cut to a scene where he is hanging from a noose, takes away all meaning from the scenes where he is a grouchy old man.
I prefer “A Man Called Horse”. Much more “touching”.
Stopped reading after “Treats the trans like family” or thereabouts. F Hollywood.
In “Larry Crowne,” Hanks wrote and directed himself as a dull middle-aged guy who’d been passed by in life, yet was so upright and lovable that he was befriended by cool college kids and ended up dating Julia Roberts. This sounds like another step in that direction. He’s testing the limits of his natural likeability — and apparently has finally found them.
Hanks should have left this piece of dreck on the island with Wilson.
I am relieved the the film had at least one representation of Trans youth, because as we all rightfully believe, there ought to be a trans person in every film made, if not the starring characters, because they are so important to the world today.
Transgender dysphoria is a mental illness that should be treated by a psychiatrist.
I Agree. The mechanical insertion of the akward, misplaced, forced Woke, Equity, or whatever Trans confused sceane, caused me to hit the eject half way thru. I felt swindled, thinking Tom Hanks movie will not force gender dysphoria propaganda agenda, completely out of place. The entire mechanical forced theme did not fit this film. No reality of characters interacting, never in real life, All the men were dolts, incompetent, so tiresome. . And the train station are so pristine of beautiful perfect people. HA, public transportation is like jumping in Zombie hell you may likely get attacked and killed. This was a fantasy fake film, really Unbeleivable .
Love your comment @Anti Wokeness.
What a dumb world we live in today. Everything forces an agenda. I am not old or bitter and I still feel disgust towards the braindead/robot mentality of today’s society. The majority are complete idiots that don’t think for themselves and don’t know how to do simple things or think logically. That’s why everything is f***ed. To the people praising the movie and getting offended by negative criticism , you should ask yourselves: Did I really enjoy the movie or did I feel forced to like it by imposed fabricated guilt and virtue signaling? I get it, you don’t want to be the “a**hole” that shits on such a “wholesome” movie. Get the f over it and be realistic. This movie is crap. It’s predictable, forced, carries too many agendas cramped up together into a clusterf***, and on top of all that it had the worst sound track ever. I give the cat kuddos tho, for being the only genuine character.
Interestingly, Tom Hanks has now starred in two mediocre remakes of excellent films. “The Man with One Red Shoe” is a remake of the excellent French film “The Tall Bond Man with One Black Shoe.” “A Man Called Otto” is a remake of the Swedish film “A Man Called Ove.” I highly recommend the originals. The Tom Hanks remakes, not so much.
Three. The Ladykillers.
I agree. I just watched A Man Called Ove. Very good.
How can you a movie about “the younger generation has lost its way” and then embrace gender bending?
You so missed your review on this one! The neighbors knew Otto before and that’s why they put up with him. It’s not about the clown it’s about the quarter. The kids see Otto for who he really is that’s why they paint him in color. You never mention the young Otto is Hanks’ son and does a great job and addresses his not so great childhood and youth awkwardness. The love story comes with the most tragedy a couple could ever imagine! Otto explains he wanted to go after everyone and she prevented that but now she is gone. Otto’s condition also plays a “big” role in this movie and again not discussed. (Hope you get the pun) You missed so many underlying stories and gave your readers a very wrong impression of this movie
Totally agree. Loved this movie!
Agree, a lazy cynical, Marvel loving review
I agree with you completely. Very well put assessment. Some important points were missed in most reviews. This notion in film that “everything predictable is inherently bad” needs to be reviewed. There are more reasons to watch a film then wanting characters and stories to behave antithetically. Some of us like a moral predictable story. Some people fighting through grief in their real lives can discover a movie like this and find it has a cathartic affect on them.
Yes!! Thank you for posting that wonderfully insightful statement!! I loved it, too!
Thank you!!!
100% agree, It was a story and I was enthralled throughout. I guess if a movie lacks sex, nudity and violence it is not good. So sad, this movie should have been nominated.
It is a faithful remake of A Man Called Uve, from the wildly successful novel by Frederik Backman, NOT a Hollywood formula flic. It wouldn’t have been made if both the novel and the Swedish film had not been so popular. If you’re going to review a movie, maybe do some research first.
A film can be both a remake and formulaic to the core. And the review mentions the Swedish film and its origin.
Absolutely, cynical Americanised, there is no world outside the USA.
If he tells the Mexican neighbor that there’s no crying in soccer, it will all be worth it.
Sounds a bit like a ripoff of Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino.”
It was better when it had Clint Eastwood in it and was called “Gran Torino”, but even that one wasn’t very good.
more like Ricky’s, After Life
I totally agree with you, and I was going to post the same thing.