3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): A Man Called Otto

2022, Marc Forster (World War Z) -- download

Sometimes you just need a good cry.

This is the American adaptation of a Swedish movie (A Man Called Ove) from the Swedish book of the same man. It concerns a startlingly cranky, recent widower who is set in his ways and constantly at odds with his neighbours and anyone who comes to his rowhouse neighbourhood. His wife Sonya passed recently from cancer and she was his world, thus he has decided to kill himself. But first, cancel power and phone, and make sure everything is neat & tidy for whomever finds him. Alas, he keeps on getting interrupted.

I am that startingly cranky guy, minus the widowing. Alas, I am a bit more reserved about telling people to their faces about how much of an idiot they are. I leave that to social media complaining. Otto (O-T-T-O; Tom Hanks, Castaway) does not; he let's everyone know, right away. Nobody likes him; very few tolerate him. And then Marisol & Tommy move into the house across the lane, along with their two rambunctious kids. Marisol (Mariana Treviño, 100 días para enamorarnos) is very pregnant, very effusive and honest in her interactions with Otto. Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, The Lincoln Lawyer) is an IT Consultant, thus an utter nitwit. The kids are cute, instantly labelling Otto as Abuelo Luchador. 

Through his repeated and failed attempts to kill himself, we are introduced to Sonya through desperately lovely recollections on how they met, fell in love and got married. Otto was a nitwit; she helped him be something more. These scenes are lovely but sad, revealing that Sonya was eventually injured and confined to a wheelchair, after having lost their son in a bus accident. But again lovely, as you know she lived a full life with Otto having been a loved English teacher. Think of the opening sequence of Up and how it makes you feel. A good cry.

Kent recently introduced me to the Patrick H Willems film study YouTube channel. In that post he talks about who / what is killing cinema, and one of the culprits is the lack of Hollywood Stars of late, and through them a certain kind of Hollywood movie. In the past, everyone would have rushed to see this movie, because it starred Tom Hanks. Willems laments the loss of this very type of movie, the mid-level comedy drama (not just this but the level of this movie) that very few of are made, and released to the cinema. This one was a Christmas release, with moderate success and moderate critical favour. But I agree with Willems that more movies like this need to be made, so we can just have more mild flavoured movies to feel sad and happy and just smile about. In days past, this would have been the movie my parents agreed to see together, and they would have liked it, and my dad would never have admitted to crying freely during the movie. I would have teased him.

This was the reason I chose to watch this movie, and was rather surprised by my own emotional reaction to the movie. It kind of poked at a dam of emotions being held back by my own constant level of crankiness and sadness. Sometimes we just need a good cry.