A Man Called Otto (2022)
February 3, 2023 9:00 AM - Subscribe

Otto (Tom Hanks) is a grump who has given up on life following the loss of his wife and wants to end it all. When a young family moves in nearby, he meets his match in quick-witted Marisol (Mariana Treviño), leading to a friendship that will turn his world around.

CW: suicidal ideation.

Also starring Rachel Keller, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Cameron Britton, Kailey Hyman, Mike Birbiglia, Elle Chapman, Joe Fishel, Truman Hanks.

Directed by Marc Forster from a screenplay by David Magee. This is the second film adaptation of the 2012 novel A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman after the 2015 Swedish film of the same name. music by Thomas Newman.

70% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Now playing in theaters. JustWatch listing.
posted by DirtyOldTown (4 comments total)
 
I enjoyed the book but had to turn off the Swedish movie within about 15 minutes because of how unpleasant I found the main character portrayal.

I am interested to watch this and see if the Hanks version is closer to the book version I have in my head.
posted by madajb at 11:35 PM on February 3, 2023


I saw it on Monday. Tom Hanks is great as usual and I loved the other actors.

To be honest I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't seen Gran Torino a few times. It was nice but fairly predictable.
posted by M. at 1:02 PM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]


It was pap, honestly. I'm sure Hanks had fun doing it but the plot was wafer thin.

We decided that the moral was, if the spirit of your dead wife doesn't want you to commit suicide she will send multiple increasingly improbable distractions to stop you from doing so.

Anyone who's actually lost someone to suicide is going to have some very mixed feelings about how it is treated here.
posted by emjaybee at 10:15 PM on February 18, 2023


I got around to watching this the other day.

It does basically what it says on the tin, it's maudlin and quirky and reliably hits what it is aiming for.

I thought all of the supporting actors were top notch. Mariana Treviño was great and played against Hanks very well.
I was impressed by how well Truman Hanks imitated his Dad's mannerisms. The walk was spot on.

The weakest part, oddly enough, was Hanks himself.
At the end of the day, this movie is Tom Hanks being grumpy.
He never manages to quite go over the line to irascible or surly.

You just keep waiting for Tom Hanks to be Tom Hanks.
It just doesn't quite work.
posted by madajb at 2:56 PM on March 11, 2023


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