As the country has become nastier, crueler and more divided, a movie affirming Fred Rogers and paying tribute to his skills as a human being, supporter of children’s TV, composer, performer and puppeteer is more than a little timely.

It is essential.

Wow, wouldn’t it be great to have Mr. Rogers on TV every morning now?

“A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood” casts Tom Hanks, Hollywood’s nicest guy, as Rogers, perhaps the nicest person ever to appear on national television.

As the news becomes meaner, our need for Fred Rogers grows and deepens.

Hanks does a brilliant job of portraying this Presbyterian Minister – turned champion of the notion that kids ought to be loved for who they are, not who their parents or teachers or friends want them to be.

This being America, and Hollywood being Hollywood, the producers decided this achingly yearned for and loved icon wasn’t interesting enough to carry a movie all by himself.

So this was turned into two movies in one: the story of Mr. Rogers, a true story, and the made-up story of Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) and of his neglected wife (Susan Kelechi Watson)  his alcoholic father Jerry (Chris Cooper).

The Fred Rogers part of the story was wonderfully and inventively told by Director Marielle Heller.

The story of Lloyd,  also directed by Heller, is of the bitter and angry journalist who kicks off the movie by getting into an ugly fistfight with Lloyd. This came across to me as both cheap and predictable. It craps up what is otherwise a beautiful and very touching movie.

I went to this movie to see Tom Hanks play Fred Rogers. I got half of what I paid for.

The Rogers half is well worth the time, the Lloyd half is so predictable we know the ending five seconds in. You’ve seen it before, a thousand times, in movie theaters and on network TV.

The movie says it was inspired by Tom Junod’s profile of Rogers in Esquire Magazine  “Can You Say…Hero?” – some years before Rogers died of stomach cancer.

A producer called Junod to tell him the good news that the movie was finally being made. The bad news was that the movie journalist was being fictionalized to jack up the storyline.

Junod wisely asked that his name be changed in the movie. The friendship with Rogers, he writes, is very true.

That was too bad because the real story seemed more than good enough and I can’t fathom why half it was wasted on this soap opera and  worn tale of family conflict and miraculous resolution.

Cliche is the word that comes to mind (cynical journalist seeking his better self, hating his father for abandoning him, etc., finding his humanity)

Hank’s wonderful presence and performance and the very inventive use of Roger’s toy set made the movie appear all the more schizophrenic. There was nothing inventive about the other half.

Like many of the people reading this, this was a movie I really wanted to see, I watched Mr. Rogers with my daughter many times, he was that rarest of public people, a kind minister of great faith, and one of the great advocates ever for children in need of understanding.

His sincerity, simplicity and faith touched a lot of children and adults. His neighborhood was, in fact,  a nice place, honest but safe.

Rogers was the real deal, he holds up over time, more revered as the country grows harsher.

There have been none of the usual revelations about abuse or an invisible nasty side that seem to follow the most public people.

Yet the Rogers half of the movie didn’t push him as a saint either, but a very human person who taught us a lot about humanity.

Roger’s genius was that his moral authority seemed to rise from his empathy rather than arrogance or a sense of superiority.

We not only miss him, but we need him.

Morning television in our time is a cesspool of hatred and conflict, Rogers would have hated it. This wise and gentle voice would be wonderful for our children to hear in 2019. Cruelty, corporate marketing, and political polarization has drowned out simple and healing messages like his.

Children have a much harsher media world to grow up in, the most popular cartoon shows and games revolve around killing and combat, not learning about life.

While I loved the Rogers half of this movie, I need to report that unlike Morgan Neville’s very moving 2018 documentary about Fred Rogers – “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” this movie is not primarily about Roger’s amazing work in children’s television. Thus not as revealing.

If you want more, check out the documentary.

“A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood” is  mostly about how this invented friendship with Rogers turns Lloyd from an angry and hostile son, father and husband into a forgiving son, an empathetic husband and a more involved father.

According to Junod (he wrote a great piece about his friendship with Rogers in the “Atlantic”  magazine recently, friendship was very real. I wish it was in the movie.

Rogers casting his spell on Junod is not only a Christic figure in the movie, he is a magician as well, using his puppets and loving ways to transform a tortured and enraged human being. This is miracle healing, not children’s television.

What, really, I wondered, does this have to do with the impact of Rogers on so many kids, his life’s work and the point of his fame? What does it say about our world now, and the devastation corporate marketing has done to good programming.

None of these questions are even broached in this double movie release.

I do recommend seeing the movie. Hanks is wonderful, a brilliant choice to play Rogers.

I’m sorry they cannibalized the movie in this way, it tarnishes the film’s soul and tests our patience.  Why diminish a great actor playing a great man in this way?

I saw a lot of people tearing up during the Rogers half of the film, nobody cried for the rest. The Lloyd family drama gave them plenty of time to pull themselves together.