As the title character in \u0022A Man Called Otto,\u0022 Tom Hanks plays a cantankerous widower with an affinity for home repair.
In the process, a bleak dramedy has turned into a cozy crowd-pleaser. There’s nothing wrong with that, though the story’s darker elements don’t always jell with the frothier approach. A sexagenarian who revels in routine, Otto wakes up at 6:29 a.m. – seconds before his alarm is set to go off – and makes the rounds in his gated Pittsburgh cul-de-sac.
It’s all grumpy antics until Otto arrives at work, where he’s being forced out of his longtime factory job amid a corporate merger. After bailing early on his retirement party and heading home, he methodically cancels the electricity, vacuums the carpet, takes out the trash, ties a noose around his neck and tries to hang himself.Article content
Such a grave development, while tonally apt in “Ove,” jars in the more broadly comedic “Otto.” But the film is less interested in Otto’s failed suicide attempt than the interruption that helps foil it: new neighbours in the form of pregnant mom Marisol , her easygoing husband and their two young daughters. Predictably, Otto bonds with the dysfunctional clan amid various diversions that reconnect him to his community.
That said, Forster’s film deserves to be judged on its own terms. As cloying as this interpretation may be, there’s something soothing about its wholehearted vision of the “found” family and its virtues. Throw in an actor as likable as Hanks – back to form after uneven performances in “Elvis” and “Pinocchio” – and even the curmudgeons should be won over. Sure, it’s formulaic. And there will be no Oscar for this grouch. But as Otto might say, there’s nothing wrong with routine.
Rating guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars OK, one star poor, no stars waste of time.
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