'A Man Called Otto' review: Tom Hanks' latest film is a lesson in how to bring back neighbourliness into our lives

Tom Hanks as Otto (Screen shot)

Content warning: Contains spoilers

A cat and a pregnant woman transform a crotchety, curmudgeonly, cantankerous lonely old man - Otto (Tom Hanks) - into a loving neighbour. This in a nutshell is the story of A Man Called Otto.

The fluffy tabby (feline actor called Smeagol) shows up in Otto’s neighbourhood one day, and decides that she is going to adopt Otto. But Otto doesn’t want any needless distraction. He’s preparing for an event for which he has ensured that he has no power, no heating, no more telephone service. He’s bought himself rope (five feet, no more) and a hook, and he’s going to kill himself. And he’s irritated by the whole world that seems to be full of idiots.

But before we are alarmed for Otto, we realise that we may have a person living right next door who is as crotchety as him. Perhaps we have shut our doors to neighbours, complaining when they party, hating their complete lack of parking abilities, and bellyache about their mannerless progeny. Are we Otto of our neighbourhood?

Marisol doesn’t allow Otto to slam the door on her face. Her determined foot forces him to stay and have a conversation. Pregnant Marisol has moved into the row-house across from Otto with her two kids and Tommy, her idiot husband (Otto’s description, not mine), and will be neighbourly with chicken mole in a tupperware box. She’s a force of nature, like a hurricane ordered to blow through Otto’s organised, scheduled life and break every barrier he has created between him and the world.

The chicken mole is ‘interesting’ but it’s enough to interrupt the determination that Otto has to commit suicide. When he climbs on to the table and sticks his head into the noose, the ceiling is unable to take Otto’s weight and he crashes to the floor. Suicide is hardly a subject of comedy, but if you’ve seen ‘A Man Called Ove’ or read the book (same title) by Swedish writer Fredrik Backman (first published in Swedish in 2012 and then in English in 2013, was in the New York Times Bestseller list), you sit back and enjoy your popcorn because Tom Hanks who plays Otto, in this version of the film, is such a delight to watch.

Tom Hanks brings a particular brand of irritation with the world that comes not just with age, but with experience writ large on the furrows of his forehead. If he comes across as smug in Polar Express and in You’ve Got Mail, you let it be for the former and watch him discover love in the latter. His perfection annoys many, but you know that you love it when the smile lights up his face, whenever his character discovers something wonderful and you smile back sitting in the darkness of the theatre, And even though the adjective ‘earnest’ is not considered to be hip, he’s so affable, you cannot but like him.

Even as the cantankerous neighbour Otto, Tom Hanks makes you wish that he’s unsuccessful in every attempt he makes to join his beloved Sonya (Rachel Keller is so beautiful, you understand why he feels lonely without her).

But, Marisol. She’s knocking on his door, bribing him with food, standing up to his general grouchiness with requests to babysit her kids, treating his rudeness with sarcasm, borrowing things as neighbours do, asking him to teach her how to drive. Such a tornado of action and she’s pregnant too! Otto has not come across a person like her, who dares to tell him, ‘Focus!’

Otto is dragged into participating in Marisol’s family life unwillingly. He tries to tell her to shut up when she asks too many questions about his life, and shuts the door on her face when he suddenly feels unwell.

The cat in the meantime has made its way from his garage to his front door to his bed. The cat has adopted him and he has been enslaved. Much like the delightful Kannada film 777 Charlie, the adoptees don’t seem to have a choice.

Mariana Trevino, who plays Marisol bests Tom Hanks in the film in an unforgettable scene when she refuses to let him use her phone. She is worried for him. Even though she irritates him with her questions, pesters him with requests, feeds him strange foods (like the Salvadoran biscuits Salpores de Arroz) and annoys him by her choice of a husband, she gets mad at him for shutting her out of his life (when he shuts the door on her).

‘Do you know how worried I was for you?’

As Marisol shares her fear for Otto and Otto stands there stunned, you realise that you have melted into a sort of mush. This is not some comedic Grumpy Old Men or even the drama of Gran Torino. This is a love story. Marisol and the cat have transformed Otto into an Abuelo, a grandfather. Someone who learns to live again.

The gentle focus of Otto’s past (Tom Hanks’ son Truman Hanks plays the young Otto who finds the love of his life on a train platform) seems to now be replaced with Grandpa Otto who becomes Marisol’s family (I wished there was technology that could slo-mo the film when we see the pictures of Otto with Marisol’s family in her home). And for movie buffs who like exploring places that you see in the movies, the train station where young Otto falls in love with Sonya is the historic Brecksville Station of the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad (Cuyahoga is a stunningly beautiful US National Park in Ohio state).

Otto’s relationships with other neighbours, his love for American cars is so good, you will be forced to examine your own relationships and pet peeves and passions as you emerge from the film. The film is a harsh but necessary commentary on the state of the lives of the elderly and the predatory practices of real estate developers. But it’s mostly an unbelievably gentle tug of war between Otto and his hurry to leave the world to join his beloved Sonya, and Marisol, who will fill Otto’s life with reasons to live.