“A Man Called Otto” (2022)
Underwhelming “As Good As It Gets” for the 21st Century.
Underwhelming “As Good As It Gets” for the 21st Century.
Based upon the 2012 novel “A Man Called Ove” written by Fredrik Backman and the second adaptation to film in a decade following a Swedish release of A Man Called Ove in 2015, this is the twelfth directorial release from German born filmmaker Marc Forster in quite the eclectic career! Monster’s Ball is now over two decades old, I have a real fondness for Finding Neverland in 2004 and in the near twenty years since Forster has helmed a James Bond film (sadly the one often mocked and decried) as well as a zombie pandemic in World War Z and most recently, in 2018, a Disney backed interpretation of Christopher Robin.
Having not read the book nor seen either the previous film or any trailers, I stumbled into A Man Called Otto without any preconceptions whatsoever but was immediately struck from the opening titles onward of the eerie similarity I saw for the double Oscar winning As Good As it Gets from 1997. You have a grumbling, bumbling older man with a pedantic desire for rules, order and a somewhat man out of his time, now lumbered with both a new animal friend as well as the fuckwits of life whom he calls “idiots” and for whom “You’re not an idiot” is the highest of all possible compliments. Whereas Jack Nicholson was paired with the love interest of fellow Oscar winner Helen Hunt and the gay, camp smiles of a brilliant Greg Kinnear, here Tom Hanks is coupled with the strangest of neighbours, the newest of which is destined to become the angel on his shoulders whether he wishes her to be or not.
For Otto is on the brink of retirement as well as the end of a life he cannot continue with after the devastating death of the love of his life. He cuts a figure of a sad, lonely man making preparations for the suicide that will reunite him with a wife he lives with daily through the vivid dreams of a past he recounts through the colourful clarity of director Forster. Whereas the present day scenes are exceptionally cold and painted in blues and greys, the flashbacks are as noticeably colourful as Otto’s lament halfway through as he explains to the colourful angel currently on his shoulder:
“My life was black and white before I met Sonya. She was the colour”.
The angel on Otto’s shoulder is a pregnant newcomer to the neighbourhood in the guise of “Marisol” and a fantastically impressive performance of scatter-brained love and concern from Mariana Trevino. Deeply in love with her accident prone and bungling, bumbling husband, Marisol’s infectious personality and beaming smile gently opens the closed door on Otto’s life, and a life stood still where it ended, and may well now begin again.
With Tom Hanks son Truman playing the younger Otto, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Marisol’s childlike husband, Cameron Britton, Mack Bayda and comedian Mike Birbiglia as a rapacious estate agent, there is a lot going here from memories, loss, grief, death through to friendship, social justice, capitalism, transgenderism as well as the overarching theme of suicide in a film that I sobbed along with whilst not overly enjoying at all. Aside from Marisol’s character I found nothing of substance or interest whatsoever, the comedy was largely flat and out of place and whilst I tend to revel in such melancholic fair, perhaps the central theme of the film simply hit far too hard and far too close to home.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 250 blog articles (with 450+ individual film reviews) within my film library from which to choose:
“The Whale” (2022)
“People are amazing!”.medium.com