'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood' is a lovely reminder of why we need Mister Rogers

"I just don't know if he's for real," says journalist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) early in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, after a bewildering first interview with Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks).

It's a question that's surely come up in the minds of anyone who once loved Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, but has since grown up enough to realize how rare his brand of goodness truly is: Can someone truly be this wise and patient and pure?

But it's one Beautiful Day doesn't actually have much interest in answering. Instead, the film turns its focus to Lloyd, as a way of examining what Mister Rogers represents, and why we need him so badly in the first place. The result is a touching tribute to a singular man, and a gentle reminder that it's up to us now to apply the lessons he left us to the rest of our world.

Loosely based on a 1998 Esquire profile, Beautiful Day plays out as a sort of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood for grownups. The film opens on what looks like a typical episode of the series, only with Hanks as Rogers (if their looks don't quite match, the America's Dad energy definitely does). There's the little neighborhood we know so well, and the familiar tinkle of that theme song, and the combination of all of it is enough to inspire smiles and maybe even a few tears.

Then we are introduced to Lloyd, the true protagonist of this tale. Lloyd, Mister Rogers explains, is hurt, and not just physically. Lloyd describes himself at one point as "broken," and he is, in a familiar sort of way. He's got a thriving career, a devoted wife, an adorable kid, and a reasonably sized New York City apartment(!), and yet there's something within him that hasn't quite set right.

If you've guessed that Lloyd's interviews with Mister Rogers will become part of his healing process, congratulations, you've seen a movie and/or an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood before. But what could have been a predictable exercise in celebrity worship turns into something more subtle and unexpected in the hands of director Marielle Heller -- with some bold visual flourishes that bring Beautiful Day into downright dreamy territory.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Can You Ever Forgive Me? established Heller as a tremendously sensitive filmmaker, able to bring out the softness in even the most guarded of characters. Here, she's able to bring Rogers down to earth, without quite robbing him of his mystery; Hanks' performance gives the impression of a complicated inner life concealed underneath a seamless surface.

Rhys, meanwhile, rises to the challenge of expressing the emotions of a man who doesn't quite recognize them himself. Beautiful Day's most riveting scenes are of these men verbally dancing around each other, each more comfortable asking questions than answering them, each striving for a sort of intimacy, each negotiating with himself how much to share, when to deflect, when to retreat.

There's a spikiness to those conversations that is missed later in the movie, as Beautiful Day increasingly gives itself over to sweetness and light. Though the movie restrains itself from tipping over into full-blown sentimentality, the conclusion feels ever so slightly too pat for a movie about two men who pride themselves in not flinching in the face of darker truths.

But perhaps that's just right, for a story about Mister Rogers -- this insistence on giving and receiving forgiveness even when it's hard, this willingness to be a little bit mushy, corny even, if it means seeing the world with more love. Beautiful Day ends with a coda that drives home both his humanity and his enormous impact. He may remain unknowable for now, but his influence lives on in anyone who's ever loved him, and wanted to believe he was for real.