The biggest challenge in sitting through A Man Called Otto is watching one of America’s most beloved public figures – the guy who took us on a whimsical journey through American history, to surviving alone on a deserted island, to a heroic landing on the Hudson River – as a miserable old coot bent on killing himself.
Now, suicide is no laughing matter, but it is laughable the way this movie treats it as essentially an excuse for black comedy. Watching Tom Hanks repeatedly attempt to end it all is not funny, amusing, or entertaining on any level.
But the range is the mark of any truly great actor and uncomfortable as it gets at times, Hanks pulls it off as the titular character. In Hanks’ capable hands, Otto manages to deliver in the end a message of acceptance, activism, and hope, contrived as it may be.
The story begins as Otto Anderson (Hanks) accepts a forced retirement and faces life alone following the recent death of his wife Sonya (Rachel Keller). He then proceeds to unapologetically criticize and berate everyone and anyone in his working-class neighborhood who doesn’t adhere to the world as he sees it. Idiots, he calls them. Otto the man is a thoroughly unlikable character.
But then he meets a new immigrant family moving in across the street, led by the mother, Marisol (Mariana Trevino), an eternally optimistic woman who even Otto can’t seem to bring down— until he does. Alongside Hanks, Trevino gives a performance that stands out, dominating scene after scene as she offers Otto a path to redemption. Trevino’s good work helps to make Otto work.
It's important to note, the acting throughout Otto is excellent, and not just from the leads. Manual Garcia-Rulfo, Cameron Britton, Juanita Jennings and Mack Bayda all give credible performances as Otto’s various idiosyncratic neighbors.
Beyond petty battles over mundane tasks, Otto finds a greater antagonist in a heartless development company that’s encroaching on his tiny, tidy street and threatening it with extinction. He also sporadically deals with modern-day banes like ageism, cellphone addiction and social-media influencers.
Meanwhile, a series of flashbacks to his life with Sonya, skillfully woven into place by director Marc Forster, explains how the young Otto (played by Hanks’ youngest son, Truman Hanks) came to be the curmudgeon of today.
A Man Called Otto provides all the usual “difficult-old-man-comes-around-in-the-end” plot points, along with appropriate comeuppance to those who deserve it. So, if that’s enough for you, this movie is a success. I don’t believe, however, that Otto will ever join the long list of iconic flicks that define Hanks as a must-see man onscreen. Rate this one a 6 out of 10.