Won’t You Be My Neighbor – Review

In the midst of a blockbuster summer movie season packed to the brim with explosions, superhero families, all-female heists, towering skyscrapers, and of course, billions upon billions of dollars in shimmering production value, it’s easy to lose a quietly and calmly offered documentary like Won’t You Be My Neighbor in the shuffle.  I’m glad that I didn’t, and I’m here to talk briefly about it after seeing it last week.  Neighbor was produced by Focus Features, and directed by Academy Award winner Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom).

Fred Rogers: the man, the myth, the legend.

Simply put, after sitting through the entirety of Neighbor, I feel strongly that there are few people in the entertainment industry more deserving of a feature-length documentary than Fred Rogers, and Neighbor is faithful in its reporting of both the abundant good and the supposed bad surrounding him.  In spite of the documentary’s clear support of Rogers, it is willing to ask the question that has apparently been posed by others: is the generation he had such a strong hand in fostering too entitled? It’s hard to think so after watching, and even if there’s truth to it, it’s a worthy price to pay for his extremely net-positive influence on the younger members of society, which I’ll get to shortly.  We’re told that Rogers would never want us to think this about ourselves, but after watching all I could reason was that I could never be nearly as good a person as he was, and more generally, it led me to think that maybe I’m not good enough, or as good as I could be, which I suppose is a positive outcome.  It also led me – along with everyone else in the audience, I suspect – to the conclusion that the current (and, frankly, forever) state of television, and in particularly children’s television, is horribly substandard.  A lot of Neighbor serves as a patient lament of that seeming fact.

Rogers’ effect on children around the world is shown by this documentary to be nothing short of infectious.

If there’s one thing that Won’t You Be My Neighbor explicitly tries to document, though, I think it’s simply the singularity that is Fred Rogers’ personality.  First, there’s his unique way of speaking, which is a close-quarters, profoundly intimate and deliberate conversation filled with pockets of silence that are capable of making people as composed and talented as Yo-Yo Ma (a personal friend of Rogers) quite uncomfortable.  Then, of course, there’s his general message, which is a simple blend of faith and tolerance, and which is surely informed by his training as both a minister and a child psychologist.  It’s shown to be a simple philosophy, even when considering the small bit of numerology attached to it, but even in its simplicity, it’s shown throughout Neighbor via countless testimonials, awards presentations, and tear-jerking moments to be both incredibly powerful and incredibly unique.  Fred Rogers is shown to be the person that few people if any are able to become in terms of untarnished celebrity, and the startlingly different nature of his humanity is such that people want to grab onto rumors to try to better understand it – we’ve all heard the stories that he was a Navy SEAL, or that he was in fact gay in spite of years of marriage to his wife Mimi – but these are all just attempts at explaining a man who may in fact be unexplainable.

That sweater, though.

What’s truly special about Mr. Rogers and his approach, though – at least according to this documentary – is that he was unflinchingly honest with children, addressing them in a way that it seems no one else in the television or entertainment industry would or could.  This is clearly evinced by his show’s confronting the Vietnam War in its first week of airtime, as well as in its tackling of other troubling historical events such as Bobby Kennedy’s assassination and general societal unrest associated with racial inequality.  Indeed, Rogers’ candidness and willingness to devote entire weeks of programming to difficult topics like death and divorce suggest an understanding of child psychology as it relates to broadcasting that few others – or maybe even no others – have.  That, in addition to his puppet-voicing talents, his musicianship (something I didn’t have as good a sense of), his unique interviewing style, and his rigorous adherence to routine, is what made Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood the cultural staple, and its host a cultural icon, for decades – but it also bears with it a heck of a lot of pressure.  For years upon years, Rogers was called upon in times of crisis and tragedy to address the feelings of children and adults alike (he actually had a show for adults at one point, with some archival footage shown in Neighbor), simply because he was so consistently good at doing so.  This culminates towards the end of both the documentary and Rogers’ life with the filming of a public service announcement following 9/11.

Rogers washing his feet with Officer Clemmons and helping his younger viewers understand the dangers of racial inequality. 

This 9/11 address is just one of a large number of moments in Neighbor that left me misty-eyed, or with my mouth hanging open, or wanting to laugh or clap in approval.  I could have watched the interaction between Rogers and Koko the Gorilla alone for an hour and a half, but there are plenty of other scenes in the history of Rogers that are near as moving.  An on-air duet about the struggles of anxiety shows both how magnificent the pedagogical tools of music and puppetry can be and how relevant Rogers’ messages to the world can still be today, and to people of all ages and backgrounds.  A tearful testimonial at a college graduation ceremony shows how lasting his impression can be.  His on-air conversation and song with a wheelchair-bound boy shows his ability to make anyone smile using the immense power of love.  Most of the time, Neighbor simply serves as a bucket to throw all of these moments into, and the moments themselves do the rest, showing all who watch that whether or not you’re able to see the potential flaws in the practicality of his views, there’s no denying the impact of his actions.  Rogers’ Presidential Medal of Freedom and numerous honorary doctorates are well-earned, and his posthumous documentary is thankfully and appropriately well-made.  While it may not be around in theaters much longer, it’s well worth watching via stream or rental if ever you get the chance, if only to try to comprehend the depth of selflessness itself.

Fred Rogers with Daniel Striped Tiger, the character with which Rogers claims to most closely identify.

We’ve got a big one dropping next week here at Tuesdays With Cory: Mission: Impossible – Fallout (which, incidentally, I saw this past weekend already.  It’s awesome).  After that, some thoughts on the unfortunate impending death of Moviepass – and possibly the dawn of a new era for this blog – seem appropriate.