In the last few years, Tom Hanks has dared to break from playing the nice guys or the optimistic hero. True confirmation of this was his villainous turn as Colonel Parker earlier this year in the Baz Luhrmann-directed biopic Elvis. And now, he's set to play a suicidal widow who finds his attempts to end it all constantly interrupted by his lively new neighbors and finds himself building a friendship that might save him in the end. Okay...so Hanks has completely abandoned the optimist in himself.
Based on the 2015 Swedish film A Man Called Ove (itself based on the 2012 Fredrik Backman-written novel of the same name), A Man Called Otto is a dramedy that is poised for a late-award season entry, having a limited release on Christmas before getting a wide release on January 13th of next year. The trailer released today brings to mind director Marc Forster's early existential effort, Stranger Than Fiction (2007), but the writing here is clearly far more sophisticated due to the script being handled by two-time Oscar-nominee David Magee (Finding Neverland, Life of Pi). Magee and Forster previously worked together on Finding Neverland and the combination seems consistent as their previous effort. One where a seemingly ordinary, everyday experience has it's layers pulled back to reveal there is more beneath. Check out the trailer below:
A Man Called Otto co-stars Mariana Treviño, Rachel Keller, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Cameron Britton, and Mike Birbiglia.
Grumpy old man getting sweet at the contact of a new family, how original.