A Man Called Otto

A Man Called Otto (Marc Forster, 2023) "What now?" Otto Anderson (Tom Hanks) likes to know how things work. And maintenance is 90% of civilization. So, he makes his rounds around the condo complex where he lives. Grouses about the neighbors' pets. The tire-tracks on the lawns indicating someone's driven around the security gate. He growls and grumps at his neighbors, who are just stubborn (or incessantly cheery) enough that they don't cross the street when they lay eyes on him.

It's a different gear for Hanks, who has become, if you believe the headline writers, "America's favorite actor" and "America's Dad." But, it's not a path he prefers. Before doing Road to Perdition, he was famously quoted as saying "I'm sick of playing pussies!" and his characters took on a harder edge, and gained darker tones, weaker resolves, more shadowy nuances. But, he could only take it so far before audiences rebelled—a remake of The Ladykillers was a pronounced box-office dud (despite being written and directed by The Coen Brothers). The actor who habitually likes to photo-bomb weddings reached the zenith of "Mr. Nice Guy" when he played Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and his Otto is cold-shouldered polar-opposite from that. Where Rogers met people with the expectation of seeing the best in everyone, Otto assumes everyone's "an idiot" and treats them the same, expecting the worst.

Otto has "issues" and its Marc Forster's film's job to explain them and (if we're to predict the beats) have them softened and even come to some sort of apotheosis where he's not the meanest man of the block, the "Mrs. Kravitz" in a world full of witches, and everyone's last candidate for "Mr. Congeniality."

It doesn't take much detective work to see what's going on: Otto obsessively sleeps on one side of the bed; he keeps one single "lucky quarter" on the dresser, he dresses every day in the same business casual attire—we first see him on the day of his retirement. Got any plans? Yeah! He can't fight an impromptu retirement party so he flights it, goes to the hardware store, buys some rope, cuts off his electricity and phone—arguing all the way through these acts—and after visiting his wife's grave ("Nothin' works when you're not home."), goes home, sets some newspaper on the floor, installs a strong hook in the ceiling and puts a noose around his neck and hangs himself. In the last moments of consciousness, he has just enough time to spy some neighbors moving in, irritatingly, and then...the damn ceiling gives 'way. Damn hardware store and its cheap products. Better pick yourself up and see what the new damn neighbors are doing, trying to parallel park their moving van like jack-asses.

John Lennon wrote that "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." Guess the same goes for death, too.

The new neighbors, Marisol (Mariana Treviño) and Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) are young, Hispanic, two kids with one on the way and moving in, way over the heads. Otto parallel-parks the van—it's blocking the sidewalk!—and lends a tool-set, and it becomes clear that despite his worst intentions they're going to be "friendly" neighbors, imposing themselves, like life, when he's trying to "off" himself. Well, that hole in the ceiling needs to be fixed, if the house is going to be sold afterwards, so he does a fast-seal over it, and considers new options for killing himself. Carbon monoxide poisoning? Getting hit by a train?

What we're looking at, here, is Gran Torino-lite (as it is much the same story), but without the vindictive dismissal of religion, the guns, the gang-bangers, the reflexive racism. The reflexive racism that's pierced by food, though. That's here (Otto likes Marisol's cooking). And the cars. Cars are big in both films. But, Torino was rooted in the here and now, and Otto spends a substantial amount of its run-time in the past, getting to know Otto in his younger days (played by Tom's son, Truman Hanks) and his late wife, Sonya (Rachel Keller), all indicative of Otto not being able to let go of the past, despite its pain, and despite its loss.

It's a simple story, and Marc Forster, try as he might to try and complicate things and make it an "art" film, does manage to tell it simply, despite the fancy angles, the occasional "whispy" art shot that has nothing to do with the scenario or with reality—they're faint mind-echoes, maybe from Otto's head, but it doesn't seem likely—it's just enough to put you on your guard for pretension, which, thankfully, he manages to avoid.

One would call it light-weight, but it's impossible. There should be a warning with this movie, informing those who came for escapism, and a warm-fuzzy "Tom Hanks movie" that it is a movie about suicide. You get a few attempts, their unsuccessful resolution not engendering belly-laughs of relief. No, life gets in the way (as it is wont to do), inconvenient and messy—but not as messy as these suicide attempts would be (despite Otto's pains to minimize the splatter and clean-up). 

Triggering? Maybe, I would think, especially if your expectations are for froth. One should enter these worlds without expectations or preconceptions, despite the posters and trailers, and press (even if that seems nigh on impossible) setting you up, whetting your appetite, doing the "Big Con."

Just, as a word of warning, then, not a spoiler. I won't give away how it resolves, other than to quote Orson Welles, who said “If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”

And, of course, the real-world experience that says that "life will go on, no matter how bad it gets." There's something reassuring in that, as annoying and frustrating as it can be. It beats the alternative.

 

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

Resumé by Dorothy Parker, 1926