In the latest episode of the series Americans meet a European film, the Swiss working temporarily in Hollywood Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball, Stranger than Fiction, Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace, World War Z) shot a remake of the Swedish film of the same name from 2015. In the Swedish original based on Fredrik Backman’s popular novel, the title man was called Ove and that grizzled and angry old man was played by Rolf Lassgard, and now he is Otto and played by Tom Hanks. And this two-time Oscar winner proved to be a great choice for the role of that man who is bothered by everything and who complains about everything and who decided to shorten his suffering because life no longer makes sense after the death of his beloved wife Sonya.
From the first moment, the soon-to-be-retired Otto seems like a guy who would be a worthy rival to Larry David from “No Enthusiasm, Please” in nagging, nagging and petulance. Right at the beginning, Otto gets into a fight in the store because they charged him a few cents more for the rope he plans to hang himself with, and with his ill-will and insistence on strict adherence to rules and pettiness, he terrorizes the entire block of flats where he lives. How nice and polite everyone is to him, to get an idea that Otto wasn’t always such a scumbag who doesn’t see any reason to live anymore since his wife died.
And while through flashbacks we get to know the details of Otto’s life and marriage with Sonya, new neighbors will begin to creep into his life who have moved into the apartment block he rules. The loud and talkative Marisol (Mexican Mariana Trevino perfectly matches Hanks) and her husband Tommy keep coming to Otto and, to his horror, keep asking him for favors and help. Someone needs to watch over the kids, so Tommy falls off the boat that Otto lent them, and a little, a little bit, it seems like Otto’s armor will slowly start to melt as well. We will understand that behind that grizzled old man hides a man with a big heart (and literally!), who until the end, as it goes in those Hollywood fairy tales, will find reasons to live and after several unsuccessful attempts to give up on suicide.
And regardless of the fact that we have seen practically all of it, “A Man Called Otto” was one of those positivist, bittersweet, ultimately feel-good films that somehow get under the skin. Screenwriter David Magee (Finding Neverland, Life of Pi) cleverly transferred the story from Sweden to an American apartment block, and indirectly this film also deals with the issue of gentrification, because we constantly see a developer who picks up apartments where old people live. It’s a film that elevates the audience and doesn’t shy away from being sweet, but somehow it’s hard to take that as a bad thing since we know from the beginning how it will all unfold.