My wife and I watched this at home on BluRay from our public library. It is not a Fred Rogers biography, there is an excellent one that came out in 1998 called "Won't You Be My neighbor" and it covers his whole life.
This movie, where Fred Rogers is considered the supporting character, focuses on a reporter and author given an assignment to write a very short piece for the November 1998 edition of Esquire magazine. In the process he gets to know Fred Rogers more deeply and their interactions changes his life. Fred Rogers was 70 in 1998 and only had five more years before he died from stomach cancer.
Tom Hanks, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, is Fred Rogers. Mrs Rogers, still alive, says Hanks was her husband's favorite actor. And more recent information reveals Fred and Tom are 6th cousins.
Welsh actor Matthew Rhys plays the author, Lloyd Vogel, which is actually a fictional creation. The real writer is Tom Junod who requested the character name be changed because the story in the movie deviates significantly from his own life. It is loosely based off of the profile Junod wrote and follows the friendship that emerges from it.
The other amazing role was Chris Cooper as Jerry Vogel, the estranged dad of the writer. As an example of a deviation from reality the fight at the wedding did not happen in real life.
All in all a very good movie, and the extras on the disc are very interesting. As an example the scene where Fred and Lloyd take a minute of silence to remember all those who helped them in their lives, all the restaurant patrons were people connected to Fred, including his widow and many crew members from the original Mr Rogers shows.
Also, look up the November 1998 Esquire article online, it is worth a read.
This movie, where Fred Rogers is considered the supporting character, focuses on a reporter and author given an assignment to write a very short piece for the November 1998 edition of Esquire magazine. In the process he gets to know Fred Rogers more deeply and their interactions changes his life. Fred Rogers was 70 in 1998 and only had five more years before he died from stomach cancer.
Tom Hanks, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, is Fred Rogers. Mrs Rogers, still alive, says Hanks was her husband's favorite actor. And more recent information reveals Fred and Tom are 6th cousins.
Welsh actor Matthew Rhys plays the author, Lloyd Vogel, which is actually a fictional creation. The real writer is Tom Junod who requested the character name be changed because the story in the movie deviates significantly from his own life. It is loosely based off of the profile Junod wrote and follows the friendship that emerges from it.
The other amazing role was Chris Cooper as Jerry Vogel, the estranged dad of the writer. As an example of a deviation from reality the fight at the wedding did not happen in real life.
All in all a very good movie, and the extras on the disc are very interesting. As an example the scene where Fred and Lloyd take a minute of silence to remember all those who helped them in their lives, all the restaurant patrons were people connected to Fred, including his widow and many crew members from the original Mr Rogers shows.
Also, look up the November 1998 Esquire article online, it is worth a read.