Lloyd Vogel, a cynical journalist, gets acquainted with a kind-hearted television presenter, Fred Rogers, while writing an article on him. With time, the two strike an unlikely friendship.
Tom Hanks portrays Fred Rogers in a timely story of kindness triumphing over cynicism, based on the true story of a real-life friendship between him and journalist Lloyd Vogel. After a jaded magazine writer (Matthew Rhys) is assigned a profile of Fred Rogers, he overcomes his skepticism, learning about empathy, kindness, and decency from America's most beloved neighbor.
Lloyd Vogel is an investigative journalist who receives an assignment to profile Fred Rogers. He approaches the interview with skepticism, as he finds it hard to believe that anyone can have such a good nature. But Fred's empathy, kindness and decency soon chips away at Lloyd's jaded outlook on life, forcing the reporter to reconcile with his own painful past.—yusufpiskin
Cynical, jaded investigative journalist Lloyd Vogel gets an assignment he feels is beneath him: interview and write a short article on the much-loved children's TV personality Fred Rogers. Vogel is battling his own demons, not least of which is a long-running animosity towards his father, going back to when his mother died.—grantss
A look at the life, career, and legacy of children's entertainer, Fred Rogers, at the time that he developed a friendship with a magazine writer and his family. The friendship turned out to help both of them in multiple ways to help their lives.—RECB3
In 1998, at the beginning of an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Mr. Rogers is singing "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood". He displays a picture board with five doors. Three of the doors are opened to reveal the familiar faces of Lady Aberlin, King Friday, and Mr. McFeely.The fourth door is opened to reveal the face of Mr. Rogers' troubled new friend, Lloyd Vogel, who has a black eye and a cut near his nose. Mr. Rogers explains that Lloyd has been hurt (and not necessarily on his face), and he is struggling to forgive the one who hurt him. After explaining what forgiveness means, Mr. Rogers leaves to visit Lloyd.
In 1998, Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), an award-winning but cynical Esquire journalist, attends his sister Lorraine's (Tammy Blanchard) wedding, along with his wife, Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson) (A public attorney, and a fan of Rogers' show), and their newborn son, Gavin (Zoey Harsh). Lorraine had married Todd (Noah Harpster)During the reception, Lloyd comes across his estranged father Jerry (Chris Cooper). Jerry makes a joke about Lloyd's deceased mother Lila (Jessica Hecht) -- whom he cheated on and abandoned when she was dying of cancer twenty years earlier.This enrages Lloyd into punching his father and starting a chaotic brawl, in which he is punched against the wall by another guest, putting a scar on his face.
Rogers' show is simple in nature and explains things like how magazines are made, in an easy-to-understand way for his audience which is essentially children as it is a Kids Show.The next day, Lloyd's editor assigns him to interview Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks) (The creator and host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) for a 400-word article about heroes. Every other person on the list refused to be interviewed by Lloyd and only Rogers agreed. Lloyd has gained a reputation for writing nasty articles about people and so everyone tries to stay away from him.Lloyd believes that he is an investigative journalist and cannot understand why he has been assigned a fluff piece.
Lloyd travels to the WQED studio in Pittsburgh to interview Rogers. Rogers is the type of person who gives his complete and undivided attention to whoever he is talking to. He is loved by everybody on his sets.During the interview, Rogers is dismissive of his fame and displays concern for Lloyd's nose injury, prompting a discussion in which Lloyd relates to Rogers the issue of his relationship with his father, whose apology and attempt at reconciliation Lloyd has rebuffed.Rogers tells him his ways of dealing with anger, including striking the keys of a piano. Rogers shows genuine interest in what children learn from his show and is intent on making sure that they learn the right values from him. He believes that his show gives children positive ways to deal with their feelings.
Lloyd asks for more time from his editor Helen to "investigate" Rogers.Determined to expose Rogers' nice persona as an act, Lloyd watches several episodes of Rogers' show, but is unable to discern anything. Rogers tells his viewers that the biggest mistake parents make is to forget their own childhood.Lloyd interviews Rogers again when he visits New York. Lloyd also meets Joanna, Rogers' wife. Lloyd refers to Rogers as a living saint, but Joanna doesn't like that term, which indicates that Rogers' state of being is not achievable. She says that above all, Rogers is human, faults and all.
They take the subway, where all the passengers sing Rogers' song from the show in unison.During the interview, Rogers dodges Lloyd's questions and reminisces about raising his two sons. Rogers agrees with Lloyd when he says that it could not have been easy for his sons to have Rogers as their father.Fred takes out his puppets and asks Lloyd about his childhood rabbit stuffed animal and his father, provoking Lloyd into ending the interview.
Lloyd arrives home to find Jerry and his wife Dorothy (Wendy Makkena) there talking with Andrea. Jerry tries to apologize to Lloyd for his behavior at the wedding.Lloyd berates Jerry for cheating on his mother Lila while she was dying of cancer. Lloyd says that Lila's death was painful as she fainted from screaming with the pain and Jerry was nowhere around as he was sleeping around with Dorothy. He orders him to leave, but Jerry suffers a heart attack and is transported to the hospital.
Lloyd refuses to remain overnight at the hospital with the rest of the family and returns to Pittsburgh to see Rogers. Exhausted, Lloyd collapses on the set of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe and dreams about his repressed childhood trauma. In his dream, he stumbles into an episode of Rogers' show about hospitals, finding himself wearing rabbit ears and shrunken to the size of Daniel Striped Tiger and King Friday XIII, while Rogers and Andrea tower over him. Finally, Lloyd also dreams about Lila, who gently recognizes his anger being for her memory, but assures him that she doesn't need it. Lloyd awakens to find he collapsed on set.
Rogers and his wife, Joanne (Maryann Plunkett), bring Lloyd to their home to recuperate. Lloyd and Rogers later go to a restaurant, where Rogers asks Lloyd to spend one minute thinking about the people who "loved him into being," and encourages him to forgive Jerry.Lloyd apologizes to Andrea for leaving her and Gavin at the hospital, and visits Jerry and Dorothy (Jerry's second wife) at their home. He learns that Jerry is dying of a prolonged illness, the reason Jerry attempted to reconnect with Lloyd. Lloyd forgives Jerry, promises to be a better father to Gavin, and writes an article about Rogers' impact on his life.Lorraine, her husband Todd (Noah Harpster), and Rogers visit Jerry. Rogers asks Jerry to pray for him before he departs. Jerry dies shortly after Rogers' visit and Lloyd's 10,000-word article, titled "Can You Say ... Hero?", is published as Esquire's cover story.
At his studio, Rogers films the final take of an episode of his show before playing the piano to signify the end of another day of production.
