Tom Hanks' Oscar-worthy turn may be heartwarming but it's also creepy

This could have been the corniest movie ever made, instead it's a complex portrait of extreme self-control being its own form of madness.

Marielle Heller and Tom Hanks on the set of the unsettling A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Lacey Terrell

John McDonald

Jan 31, 2020 – 4.40pm

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“What the hell was that!?” said a colleague when we left the cinematheque after viewing A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood. As the usual routine is that we all shuffle out avoiding eye contact, jealously guarding our tiny insights, such an exclamation was – to say the least – unusual. I only wish I could have provided an answer.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood is one of the strangest films you will see this year. It’s a film that really shouldn’t work. One constantly feels at any moment the entire thing will degenerate into a vat of marshmallow.