Daddy Issues

Trouble (Mariah Garnett, 2019)

The feature debut from experimental filmmaker Mariah Garnett falls squarely within a burgeoning new tradition in cinematic autoethnography, and in that respect one ought not to marvel at its concept so much as consider how well it is executed and for what relative purpose. Operating within a Venn diagram circle that includes such works as Elisabeth Subrin's Shulie, Clio Barnard's The Arbor, Jane Gillooly's Suitcase of Love and Shame, and Jennifer Fox's The Tale, Trouble is a documentary in which Garnett travels from the U.S. to Vienna to reconnect with her father David, a Northern Irishman who she never really knew. She discovered his presence in an old BBC documentary about interfaith relationships, her Protestant dad being profiled for dating a Catholic girl.

Meeting as adults, Mariah and David speak about his life as a political activist, his experience of the Troubles, and the family history to which she never had access. Using the BBC footage as a visual basis, Mariah dyes her hair red and performs as young David, lipsynching his interview answers and recreating the atmosphere of 1970s Belfast. So Garnett, a queer artist, is excavating family and political history while also introducing her lesbian body into a metatext where, strictly speaking, it does not belong. The effort never really rises above the academic prospect spelled out in the description above, despite Garnett's obvious investment in the material. As a first effort in this particular direction, Trouble hints at better things to come, but is not all that engaging in itself.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Marielle Heller, 2019)

In the gloomy world of Oscar-bait, it's always gratifying when a film is a bit better than it has to be. And although "The Mr. Rogers Movie" is far from perfect, let's face it. All it ever needed to be was a vehicle for Tom Hanks' impression of Fred Rogers. That's how Oscar-bait works. In fact, Hanks' "impression" is not really all that great. He doesn't nail Rogers' Pittsburgh minister's lilt, and leans a bit too heavily on James Stewartisms. But that doesn't really matter, because his performance is quite strong. He plays Rogers as a man whose kind, gentle outlook is genuine while at the same time serving as a protective shell against a modern world within which he is an awkward fit at best. (When Rogers spends too long on set communing with a dying kid visiting as part of a Make a Wish arrangement, one of the producers half-jokingly asks, "Can we fire him?" and the frustration with the space-alien star of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is very real.)

Heller, who did a fine job with Will You Ever Forgive Me? and looks to be developing into a reliable mainstream talent, structures the film as a kind of extended episode of Neighborhood, centered on the emotional crises of Lloyd (Matthew Rhys), the Tom Junod stand-in who interviews Rogers for Esquire. It's a risky decision, placing the journalist front-and-center, but it serves to make the artifice of creation -- the TV show, the article, and the movie itself -- into a safe haven of sorts, an inquiry into how we cope with pain in productive ways instead of hurting the people around us. This is not the sort of film I expected to call to mind Pablo Larraín's No (in its employment of televisual texture) or Being John Malkovich (with its dip into interior psychology as puppet-show horror), and again, Heller does not make all of these elements work to the fullest, but it's still an impressive attempt.

At the end of the day, Neighborhood is a rather Manichean outlay of archetypes, where Lloyd's encounter with the Good Father (Rogers) forces him to come to terms with the real, Bad Father (Chris Cooper) who has been holding him back for so long. It's no surprise that the film provides a Speedy Delivery of a resolution. But in a movie designed to lionize Fred Rogers, it is impressive that Heller and company are willing to show that his saintly impassivity can sometimes be irritating. The bad parts of us make us human, something Neighborhood acknowledges about Rogers in its final seconds, as he hits a sour chord on the piano, embracing an anger he had up to then alluded to but had never actually shown. This split second hints at a sequel -- When Good Neighbors Go Bad -- we will never actually see.