A Man Called Otto: Agreeable Tom Hanks Dramedy a Welcome January Reprieve

By Kim Hughes

Rating: B

With one exception, there is nothing in the new Tom Hanks vehicle A Man Called Otto that will surprise anyone who has watched its trailer.

Actually, there are two surprises. The film chronicles suicide in a surprisingly forthright and unflinching way, and it takes an unexpectedly long time to reach its foregone conclusion. Still, Otto’s sweet, sentimental tone is not unwelcomed in the depths of a winter dogged by troublesome headlines on all fronts.

A Man Called Otto follows a widower of the title (Hanks) who leads an insular and very lonely life without wife Sonya. Otto is grumpy; so grumpy in fact that, as the film opens, he is berating a hapless clerk in a hardware store over 33 cents, the cost of a length of rope that Otto later unsuccessfully tries to hang himself with.

The hardware store contretemps is just one is an ongoing series of daily confrontations the old codger vigorously engages in, with neighbours, with car parkers, delivery personnel, homeless cats… the list is endless. It’s as if Otto’s only joy is anger salted with frustration.

Yet we gather from his graveside visits to Sonya — and throughout the film via flashbacks to the couple’s time together — that it wasn’t always thus, although Otto is portrayed as something of a natural misanthrope brought round by the kind and sensible Sonya.

Into this fraught present-day reality comes new neighbours Marisol and Tommy (Mariana Treviño, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) with their two daughters and another baby pending. Marisol sees through Otto’s brash veneer and over a series of events, some quotidian, some dramatic, Otto softens and becomes absorbed back into a warm, forgiving, communal life he rejected after Sonya’s death.

That’s the predictable surface stuff. The more compelling aspects of A Man Called Otto come in the smaller details: Otto’s multiple attempts to kill himself by hanging and carbon monoxide poisoning and the filmmaker’s reluctance to tee them up emotionally, rather letting them sit as they are without comment or judgement. Marisol’s cooking, and the food she brings to Otto, serves as stands-in for human connection, even when heartbreakingly eaten alone, post-suicide attempt.

There are also two tender subplots, one involving a transgendered kid kicked to the curb by their father but welcomed by Otto, who discovers a heretofore unknown connection to his belove Sonya, and another with neighbours that once were BFFs with Otto and Sonya but fell afoul.

Also notable in A Man Called Otto is the film’s wide emotional range. Credit director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland) for precisely locating the source material’s soul and, naturally, Hanks for a reliably strong yet unfussy performance.

So yes, A Man Called Otto is a January release — typically the dumping ground for weaker films — but it is much, much better than one might expect. Perhaps this is another Hollywood tradition upended by the advent of streaming services which require agility and fresh strategy to compete. The winner is the audience, and it’s unlikely anyone will leave this film feeling worse than when they walked in. In January, that’s enough.

A Man Called Otto. Directed by Marc Forster. Starring Tom Hanks, Mariana Treviño, Rachel Keller and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo. Opens wide January 13.