Movie review by Greg Carlson

In January of 2019, Chinonye Chukwu made history as the first black woman to win the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition of the Sundance Film Festival. “Clemency,” which Chukwu also wrote, is only the filmmaker’s second feature, but it unfolds with the confidence of a veteran at the helm. A harrowing, close-quarters examination of the human cost of capital punishment, the film is anchored by Alfre Woodard’s sensational performance as prison warden Bernadine Williams, a dedicated professional whose proximity to death row has taken an obvious toll on her marriage to husband Jonathan (Wendell Pierce).

Chukwu revisits a number of common cinematic tropes used for decades in movies depicting the grim rituals of state-sanctioned killing. From the horror loop nightmares of juxtaposed roles so sharply imagined in the 1961 “Twilight Zone” episode “Shadow Play” to the desperate legal longshots, oppressive countdowns, and precise procedures of “Dead Man Walking,” “Monster’s Ball,” and many others, “Clemency” demonstrates the absurdities inherent in carrying out a death sentence. Williams is haunted by a botched lethal injection that sets the stage for Chukwu’s central drama: the impending execution of Anthony Woods (Aldis Hodge), a convicted cop killer whose guilt is in doubt.

Advocating for Woods is Richard Schiff’s Marty Lumetta, whose own career path has intersected enough with Williams that the two frequently communicate, despite the gulf between their vocational roles and responsibilities. Schiff’s best scenes, however, are played with Hodge, who commands our attention as forcefully as Woodard. In one of the film’s finest moments, Hodge is visited by one-time sweetheart Evette (Danielle Brooks), who reveals a secret that simultaneously devastates and uplifts the condemned man. Their exchange, a heartbreaking report of frustrations and obliterated dreams of what might have been, is as memorable in its way as the raw-nerve, one-on-one conversations between Bernadine and Jonathan in the privacy of their home.

The eventual theatrical release of “Clemency” occurred in close proximity to Destin Daniel Cretton’s “Just Mercy.” Cretton’s film, which is based on the memoir of attorney, activist, and Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson, looks at the wrongful 1988 conviction of William “Johnny D.” McMillan. Stuart Miller recently wrote that in “Just Mercy,” Stevenson “fights the power” while in “Clemency,” Williams “wields it.” The two movies are accidental siblings, but “Clemency,” despite its unrelentingly solemn presentation, more successfully and cinematically expresses its ideas despite being a much less audience-friendly film than “Just Mercy.”.

Chukwu’s collaboration with Woodard layers “Clemency” with significance and subtext. As Angelica Jade Bastien notes, “That Bernadine is black speaks to the ways even the marginalized are complicit in the system that controls their lives.” But Chukwu avoids any overt didacticism in her storytelling, even if the mounting pressure on the beleaguered protagonist is delivered with quiet resolve and suffocating dread. Williams masks her emotions because her occupation requires it. And yet, the hallmarks of Woodard’s skillful choices — the careful concealment, the constant reserve — have the intended effect of communicating to the viewer the systematic dehumanization of the inmate and the racism built into a justice system that is anything but just.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Nearly one year ago, Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov’s stunning documentary “Honeyland” collected a trio of awards following its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Those accolades, including special jury recognition for both cinematography and “Impact for Change,” as well as a Grand Jury Prize, were the first indicators of the film’s critical potential. The recent announcement of an Oscar nomination marks the conclusion of a successful journey that features an opportunity for the moviemakers to collect a statuette as shiny and golden as the honey harvested by the luminous central subject of their film.

Co-directors Kotevska (age 26) and Stefanov (age 45) previously collaborated on the short nonfiction “Lake of Apples.” Both filmmakers are Macedonian, and “Honeyland” is only the second movie from that southeast European republic to be honored with an Academy Award nomination (Milcho Manchevski’s 1994 “Before the Rain” is the other). Statistically, the odds for this movie to make its way to Hollywood might seem long, but the incredible craftsmanship and compelling storytelling suggest not only that the attention is richly deserved, but that we will be seeing more from these storytellers in the future.

“Honeyland” closely observes the day-to-day work of Hatidze Muratova, a beekeeper who pursues her livelihood using long-preserved traditions dependent on close proximity to wild hives. Making ends meet is an around-the-clock endeavor. Hatidze also looks after her failing mother Nazife. The interpersonal exchanges between the two women are just one of the film’s many rich pleasures. In her mid-80s, confined to bed, mostly blind, and not particularly interested in eating anymore, Nazife is nevertheless sharp and witty, and the translations of her comebacks, wisecracks, and asides convey the essence of her wicked black sense of humor.

The filmmaking techniques and directorial choices will be immediately appreciated by cinephiles and documentary lovers. Kotevska and Stefanov, who spent three years gathering more than 400 hours of raw footage, effectively skip voiceover and formal talking head, choosing instead to construct the key narrative arcs of the movie through the many challenges faced by Hatidze. Obviously, the presence of the camera makes an impact on the material gathered, but the directors accept and acknowledge this feature, linking Hatidze directly to audience members she will never meet face-to-face. Quietude and introspection alternate with the more animated and stressful encounters between Hatidze and a family of nomadic neighbors.

Once Hussein and Ljutvie Sam, accompanied by their rambunctious and hysterically accident-prone brood of seven kids, announce plans to start an ill-advised beekeeping operation of their own, “Honeyland” locates a supreme conflict that needs no subtitling to be understood. It is difficult to swallow Hussein’s outwardly greedy encroachment and overextension. His actions, and his failure to abide by Hatidze’s wise plea to leave enough honey to keep the local bee population healthy, position him as something of a villain. But we marvel at the patience of Hatidze, who treats her rival’s children with kindness. In her mysterious way, Hatidze’s character is as gorgeous and singular as the breathtaking images collected by cinematographers Fejmi Daut and Samir Ljuma.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The death on March 29, 2019 of Agnes Varda concluded a career perpetually in bloom. The legendary artist and filmmaker, unmistakable in later years under her wonderfully cartoonish yet delightfully chic two-tone coiffure, was 90 years old but operated agelessly. Working to the end with future projects in queue, Varda shares directorial credit on swan song and retrospective “Varda by Agnes” with Didier Rouget. The pair of one-hour episodes combine clips with new images and selections from Varda’s live conversations in which she weaves a spellbinding monologue interspersed with brief appearances by special guests to ponder her three most meaningful words: inspiration, creation, and sharing.

Varda’s deeply personal and self-reflective nonfiction statements have inspired fresh generations of admirers to dig eagerly into her rich back catalog. As one of the French-language moviemakers whose work predated the Nouvelle Vague, Varda also directed narrative fiction. Not surprisingly, she notes her own preference for observing, including, and interacting with the “real” and the authentic. Commenting on her famous “Cleo from 5 to 7” (1961), a film that unveils Varda’s persistent interest in the fleeting and finite constraints of time and mortality, she highlights the incorporation of location photography and the presence of ordinary citizens as integral features of the filmscape.

For the viewers familiar primarily with Varda’s filmmaking, “Varda by Agnes” includes a tantalizing look at the polymath’s other artwork, a dazzling array of mixed and multimedia installations that often include, to one degree or another, a cinematic flair. Through each vignette, Varda’s voice provides context. She shares, like a beloved instructor, practical explanations of her ideas in a manner humble and unpretentious. Even though the source of this audio comes from on-stage public conversations and presentations in front of large audiences, the effect is magically personal and intimate. Varda’s enthusiasm for making is simply infectious.

Childlike wonder and insatiable intellectual curiosity fueled Varda’s six-decade career, and “Varda by Agnes” lays out in her own words the theories that fired the master’s desire to share. The vivid colors of cheap plastic — which Varda loves even as she notes the catastrophic environmental impact — are just as appealing as the mounds of heart-shaped potatoes discarded as aesthetically unfit for display-worthy grocery store sale. The latter are symbolic of the monumental importance of “The Gleaners and I” in 2000, a kind of turning point that paved the path to one of the finest latter-career filmographies in all of cinema.

Like David Lynch, Varda was an early adopter and supporter of commercial-grade digital moviemaking tools. Her endorsement of the freedoms afforded by the compact size of the handheld camcorders and the minimal cost per tape trumpet the D.I.Y. call to action. Varda said that she compiled the contents of what would turn out to be her final movie “not to stop time but to accompany time,” and the result for the appreciative viewer is nothing less than an audio-visual textbook that works in at least two ways: as a fitting obituary for Varda that gave her the opportunity to, in effect, participate in and conduct her own cinematic funeral, and as a kind of step-by-step manual for every aspiring moviemaker, photographer, and artist who has dreamed of telling a story.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Outstanding writer-director Celine Sciamma adds another sublime cinematic work to her resume with “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” A talent to watch since excellent debut feature “Water Lilies” (original title “Naissance des Pieuvres,” or “Birth of the Octopuses”) launched her career in 2007, Sciamma has developed into one of the most compelling storytellers in the movies over the course of just four features. Her other two, “Tomboy” and “Girlhood,” also attest to a sharp-eyed interest in coming-of-age tales, sexual identity, and considerations of societal constraints and expectations related to the performance of gender.

Sciamma’s first period piece may take place on an imposing island off the Brittany coast around 1770, but the central relationship of “Portrait” crackles and sparks with the same kind of electric charge found in the director’s present-day stories. Trained artist Marianne (Noemie Merlant) is commissioned by an affluent countess (Valeria Golino) to paint a likeness of the woman’s reluctant daughter Heloise (Adele Haenel) as part of a marriage proposal. Heloise, who refused to sit for a previous attempt, is deliberately misled into thinking that Marianne has been retained by the countess as a hired companion. Marianne works from memory to capture Heloise on canvas.

From first frame to last, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” is alive with vibrant, confident filmmaking. Sciamma almost always favors the power of the purely visual over the use of dialogue to communicate intellectually and emotionally with her audience. There are many films about the passionate relationships that develop between artists and models, but Sciamma capably uses the process — initially complicated by Heloise’s absence before Marianne’s easel — to contemplate ideas large and archetypal as well as intimate and personal. Helene Delmaire, the artist whose hands double for Marianne, sketches and paints onscreen in real time, affording Sciamma an immediacy and authenticity free from the “cheats” of dissolves and cuts.

The gaze, the look, the construction and reconstruction of how we see what is really in front of us and how we reinterpret, reimagine, and idealize our desires through visual art — all of these components might very well fuel future essays on the many treasures of Sciamma’s movie. Equally fascinating are the ways in which the filmmaker connects women from the 18th century to women of today. “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” looks closely at female  marginalization within the patriarchy through the texts and subtexts of abortion, forced marriage, and the monumental challenges faced by artists trying to carve out respect and opportunity in a space historically structured for men.

Throughout the film, Sciamma looks to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as a symbolic mirror for her characters, and a bonfire chanson is just one of the times the director charms living things and stones alike. Later, Sciamma locks down a blazing final act, setting up a gut-punch double ending that tops one unforgettable incident — a moment-in-time first contained and then transferred from one page 28 to another  — with equal emotional devastation. Pulling off the unlikely feat of making a section of Vivaldi’s Concerto No. 2 in G minor, best known as the Four Seasons’ L’estate/Summer, seem new and fresh, Sciamma stitches the iconic music to her own poetry.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Greta Gerwig continues to exercise her command of cinematic storytelling with “Little Women,” a perfectly wrapped and beribboned Christmas gift as welcome as a steaming cup of cocoa after a frosty skate around the local frozen pond. Proving wrong many skeptics who initially questioned her choice of post-”Lady Bird” material, Gerwig deftly adjusts the contents of Louisa May Alcott’s much-loved, oft-filmed tale through a skillful chronological reorganization that allows her to expand and contract story points as desired. The result is a handsome and heartfelt edition destined to take a rightful place alongside the very best adaptations.

Collaborating again with “Lady Bird” lead Saoirse Ronan, who plays the titanium-willed central character Jo March, Gerwig draws on the talents of Eliza Scanlen as the tragic Beth, Emma Watson as the domestically-inclined Meg, and Florence Pugh as the sometimes prickly and always self-possessed Amy. Pugh, unsurprisingly for anyone who saw “Lady Macbeth” and “Midsommar,” walks off with all her scenes, embracing along with her director all of Amy’s vanity, petulance, and jealousy. She communicates through these ugly traits not a mean girl, or a failure, or Jo’s foil, but a fully recognizable human being.

For many, myself included, the 1994 translation of “Little Women” directed by Gillian Armstrong is a considerable achievement. Gerwig undoubtedly agrees, as that version’s screenwriter Robin Swicord joins producers Denise Di Novi and Amy Pascal on the new film. The two movies make excellent companions in multiple other ways. Both draw on delightful casting choices that capitalize on the cool factor of in-the-moment movie royalty (Laurie then: Christian Bale, Laurie now: Timothee Chalamet). But Gerwig’s version surprisingly, refreshingly considers events from the wiser lens of adulthood instead of focusing on and following the coming-of-age pathway through adolescence.

Gerwig’s affinity for moviemaking is on display in the film’s extremely contemporary feeling for physical movement. This kind of action propels the trailer and carries over into the feature, and is especially vivid in the dancing of Jo and Laurie that happens, so tellingly, outside the party. The nearly anachronistic amount of affection and comfort Laurie is allowed to share as a member of the March sisters’ theatrical and artistic troupe is another example. More than once, the filmmaker pulls off some editorial sleight-of-hand that toys with the untrustworthiness of reality versus fantasy and imagination.

Gerwig makes her most indelible mark with an ongoing conversation between author Jo and publisher Mr. Dashwood (Tracy Letts, who played the father of Ronan’s character in “Lady Bird”). Dashwood insists on preserving some of the conventions and expectations of many readers then — and now. The back-and-forth mirrors Gerwig’s interest in drawing out and exploring Civil War-era realities for women, and as Alison Willmore notes, the director “treats the sisters’ diverging paths as a prism through which to look at larger themes of marriage, artistic validity, and financial constraints.” Dashwood argues that any main female character must be either married or dead by the last page. How Gerwig manages the “requirement” in her vision depends on a beautiful metanarrative twist that redefines the contours of a happy ending.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Filmmaker Sophia Takal’s reimagining of Bob Clark’s 1974 slasher classic “Black Christmas” improves on a tepid 2006 remake by Glen Morgan without finding the weird alchemy of the original. Sharing screenplay duties with April Wolfe, Takal may not have managed a definitive version, but she should be credited with constructing a genre entry interested in the feminist exploration and expression of ideas that reach beyond superficial blood and gore exploitation. Playing with of-the-moment vocabulary familiar on college campuses, the latest “Black Christmas” upends several slasher conventions, even if the film is a step down from the director’s excellent “Always Shine.”

Imogen Poots plays Riley, a sorority sister and apparent Final Girl. Preparing for winter break like her cinematic predecessors, Riley — still reeling from a sexual assault committed by an unpunished and unapologetic student who stands defiantly before her — reluctantly participates in a holiday-themed “Up in the Frat House” sketch that parodies “Up on the Housetop” with verses calling out a variety of coercive, unethical, and criminal behaviors stereotypical of booze-soaked brotherhoods. That eye-opening musical number succinctly encapsulates the filmmakers’ thematic agenda.

Prank phone calls are updated to app-based direct messages, and “Black Christmas” initially teases the possibility that the quiet Landon (Caleb Eberhardt), who takes a liking to Riley, may not be as kind and sensitive as he first appears. Throughout the film, Takal takes aim at misogyny in its multiple guises. Whether aggressive and out in the open or hidden behind a mask, the insidiousness of rape culture is investigated through “good girls,” “nice guys,” not-all-men arguments, and a Hawthorne College literature curriculum that name-checks Camille Paglia but excludes anything not written by a white male.

As Professor Gelson, Cary Elwes is the academic who openly cultivates a sexist teaching agenda, and his performance stands in for a wide variety of false victimhood narratives. Unable to accept even the slightest whiff of equality and egalitarianism, Gelson’s overreactions — even as they occur within a system designed to favor the men credibly accused of committing rapes — will remind viewers of any number of high-profile office holders perpetually outraged when confronted with facts, logic, and the truth.

Not all of the mechanics of the storytelling work, and Takal and Wolfe aren’t quite sure how to resolve some clunky elements that veer out of realism and into sorcery and the supernatural. But “Black Christmas,” despite the earnestness of its admonishment of entitled patriarchy (Takal, rather brilliantly, has claimed that she drew on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings), never takes itself too seriously. Like many genre exercises, the characters function with a level of self-awareness that flirts with metanarrative.

Smartly, Takal doesn’t always do away with the most obviously “expendable” characters, particularly the women who would traditionally be victimized by the relentless killer, and “Black Christmas” refreshingly subverts Old Dark House math to reinforce the punch of the trailer’s highlight line: “You messed with the wrong sisters.” It is on this count that the director makes her boldest and shrewdest move by sending her young women into literal battle against the privileged bros being groomed to perpetuate white male power as future brokers in education, business, law, and politics.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Jennifer Kent’s “The Nightingale” will not attract the same cult following or breadth of widespread fan devotion as “The Babadook,” but her latest marks significant progress in the filmmaker’s command of story and cinematic language. Harrowing, painful, and — for those viewers who walked out of festival screenings — unrelentingly bleak, “The Nightingale” draws from a number of inspired sources in Kent’s original tale of Irish convict Clare Carroll (Aisling Franciosi). The movie might be categorized as a rape-revenge odyssey, but unlike its exploitation kin, “The Nightingale” carefully examines the nightmare of colonialist oppression, misogyny, and racism with a steady, measured, and unblinking gaze.

Set in Australia’s Tasmania in 1825 during the period when the island was more commonly known as Van Diemen’s Land, “The Nightingale” efficiently communicates the impossible situation of Clare — twenty-one, married to another convict, and the mother of an infant daughter. Bound to humiliating servitude under the eye and thumb of British Lieutenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin), the young woman begs the officer to sign the overdue release papers that will free her and husband Aidan. At the start of the movie, our heroine sings to a group of hard-drinking, leering soldiers in a haunting moment that echoes the conclusion of Stanley Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory.”

We realize she’s caught between those men and the “protection” of Hawkins, who uses his position and rank to bully and rape. What follows is a stomach-turning sequence of events that sets up a physical and emotional journey as Clare seeks to confront her tormentor, who has left with a small number of companions to secure a promotion at the nearest post. Clare hires an indigenous guide who uses the English name Billy (Baykali Ganambarr) to help her track Hawkins. Billy’s own feelings about the British occupiers correspond to Clare’s, but the two have a long way to go to establish the unlikeliest of alliances.

While comparisons have been made between “The Nightingale” and “The Revenant” — extensive exterior settings, the beautiful but unforgiving natural world, and the levels of brutality and violence on display — Kent’s movie is spiritually closest to Jim Jarmusch’s acid Western masterpiece “Dead Man.” Parallels to Nicolas Roeg’s “Walkabout” cannot be discounted, but the intersection of cultures experienced by Kent’s two principal characters matches closely the movements of Johnny Depp’s William Blake and Gary Farmer’s Nobody.

In his monograph on “Dead Man,” Jonathan Rosenbaum devotes a section to Jarmusch’s use of violence. Comparing and contrasting the ways in which onscreen violence in Jarmusch’s films, particularly “Dead Man” and “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai,” embody the opposing poles of gracelessness and grace, Rosenbaum writes of the former title, “Every time someone fires a gun at someone else in this film, the gesture is awkward, unheroic, pathetic; it’s an act that leaves a mess and is deprived of any pretense at existential purity…” He could just as easily be describing Kent’s approach in “The Nightingale.”

Just like Nobody in “Dead Man,” Billy can speak English as a result of being kidnapped as a child. He may not utter a comic catchphrase like the colorful epithet-laced refrain delivered with perfection by Farmer, but his observations of white people are no less critical, no less perceptive, and no less skeptical. The horrorshow dystopia encountered by Clare and Billy burns images of genocidal atrocities into their brains and ours, linking the historical landscapes and grisly pasts of Jarmusch’s America and Kent’s Australia.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The politics of race in contemporary America inform the text and subtext of “Queen & Slim,” a vivid feature debut from music video director Melina Matsoukas. Described so often in “The Player”-style shorthand as “Bonnie and Clyde meets Black Lives Matter” that the tag unfairly deflates some of the character-based nuance surrounding the love-on-the-run tragedy of the central duo, Matsoukas’ stylish road movie should be destined for cult status as an object of cool. Unlike the famous Depression-era outlaws, Queen and Slim elude authorities following an act of self-defense; during a traffic stop gone sideways they miraculously avoid becoming another statistic in the ledger of killer cops punishing unarmed Black victims.

Before the audience gets to the confrontation with the hotheaded officer played by Sturgill Simpson, Matsoukas teases out a seductive and unhurried prologue. The film’s opening scene — a Tinder date, crackling with anticipation, that takes place in a greasy spoon  — introduces controlled attorney Angela Johnson/Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) and God-fearing Ernest Hines/Slim (Daniel Kaluuya). Their conversation, with words carefully-chosen by both parties, touches on attitudes about romance and loneliness, among other things. When one makes a good point, the other says, “touche.”

Like so many visuals-first commercial makers, Matsoukas freely references a dazzling range of popular culture. From Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” to Ernie Barnes’ “The Sugar Shack” to Colin Tilley’s “Alright” for Kendrick Lamar and A. G. Rojas’ “Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)” for Run the Jewels, “Queen & Slim” makes the most of its intersections. The score, by Devonte Hynes, is predictably fantastic. Karen Murphy’s production design finds an ideal companion in the costuming by Shiona Turini, particularly following a visit to the home of Queen’s Uncle Earl (Bokeem Woodbine, stealing everything he plays and then some), where the fugitives are reborn via hiding-in-plain-sight fashion makeovers and a fresh set of wheels.

In the road movie, the central odyssey of the traveler is marked by a series of single-scene encounters. Some result in setbacks, some reveal unlikely helpers, and all contribute to the education, spiritual growth, and maturation of the protagonist or protagonists. Matsoukas plays a distinct variation on Joseph Campbell’s articulation of the hero’s journey, regularly surprising Angela and Ernest along with the viewer. Several interactions introduce curious threshold guardians, and Lena Waithe’s screenplay, from a story she developed with James Frey, aims for a bold statement about solidarity and community.

The dreamlike space in which Queen and Slim elude not just law officers but an entire system designed to disadvantage and criminalize is where Matsoukas deliberately chooses to defy logic. Not all viewers or critics have bought into the moments that function as symbolic “gifts of the goddess” to keep the hero and heroine afloat, but it is through those unbelievable twists of fate and conscious decisions that one of the movie’s strengths unfolds its wings. Angelica Jade Bastien nails it, writing, “In a world and a country that is built on Black suffering, is it not radical to find happiness wherever you can?” The desperate need to locate hope and light and maybe even love where those things are in short supply recommends “Queen & Slim,” especially at a time of frustration and division.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Of the three feature films directed by Marielle Heller, all of which are based in one way or another on biographical source material, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is the least successful. But that opinion doesn’t mean her newest work is a bust; the movie’s curiosity about the blurry lines between childhood innocence and grown-up cynicism rhymes with similar themes in “The Diary of a Teenage Girl.” And the exploration of authenticity and role-playing, central to “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” lives in all three movies. Despite misperceptions that “Neighborhood” is a biopic of beatific children’s television host and icon of kindness Fred McFeely Rogers, Heller makes the bold choice to cast the famous personality as a supporting player in the story of another.

Mister Rogers probably would have supported the decision.

“Neighborhood” is inspired by journalist Tom Junod’s 1998 “Esquire” cover story “Can You Say … Hero?,” although Heller’s film, written by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, only loosely commits to fact-based storytelling. Instead, the filmmaker invites us to visit someplace parallel to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe to participate in a cathartic Mister Rogers experience expressly designed for adults, or those who might have forgotten what it is like to see the world through the eyes of a very young person. In this sense, Heller’s movie is perhaps more aligned with Rogers’ 1978 series “Old Friends … New Friends” than with the more famous and familiar “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

The central Junod-esque protagonist, christened Lloyd Vogel, is played by Matthew Rhys. Rhys occupies the unenviable position of portraying the Ebenezer Scrooge-like writer as a wounded and distrustful pessimist with serious daddy issues. Vogel’s reputation precedes  him, and we discover that Rogers is the only candidate on a list of subjects willing to be profiled by the sharp-edged Lloyd. One need not even watch the trailer (“Lloyd, please don’t ruin my childhood”) to guess that the skeptic will be a believer before the end credits. Rogers, we already know even if Vogel has yet to learn, isn’t capable of faking anything.

Who is going to argue with the casting of Tom Hanks? Even so, the reason I don’t care for most fictionalized biopics lies in the imitation of one well-known person by another. No matter how flattering the inhabitation or the mimicry, my mind wanders to the “real thing.” Morgan Neville’s documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” with the genuine article front and center for the duration of the show, is more transcendent and transformative than Heller’s experiment, despite Hanks’ skillfulness, the facsimile of Rogers’ signature sweaters, and the replica sets rebuilt at Pittsburgh’s WQED, with studio footage captured on vintage Ikegami television cameras.

The music, including Rogers’ own beautiful compositions, factors significantly alongside a rather lovely complementary score by the director’s brother Nate Heller. Some tear-jerking, nearly obligatory Nick Drake and Cat Stevens, going to town like a waterworks insurance policy, also makes the soundtrack. Cameo appearances by several Rogers family members, friends, and collaborators will be spotted by sharp-eyed fans. Whimsical miniatures and shifting aspect ratios further evoke the oddity of the earnest Rogers and his limitless interest in the well-being of others. Heller even embraces some of the master’s own techniques honoring presence, patience, and quietude — including a nod to a legendary 1972 episode and Rogers’ brilliant “gift of a silent minute” to think about those who have helped us and “loved us into being.”