Her name is Joanne, and she and Fred raised two sons, John and James. Rather than trying to unlock offscreen secrets, he sets out to assess the meaning and impact of an onscreen persona. It is that emphasis — the earnest, critical attention to the public Mister Rogers and his legacy — that makes “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” feel like such a gift. Like Tom Junod’s great 1998 Esquire profile — the inspiration for a Mister Rogers biopic with Tom Hanks set for next year — this movie is at once unapologetically admiring and intellectually rigorous. It begins with an old clip of Fred Rogers, a trained composer, at the piano, explaining his approach to communicating with children by way of the musical concept of modulation.

Source: New York Times June 06, 2018 08:00 UTC