Otto is annoying. His neighbors, former friends, the courier, basically himself too. Otto is an aging pedant. He controls the waste separation, refers to regulations, lives within clearly defined rules. Aside from his petty admonitions and needless bickering, he’s largely retired. Tom Hanks is “A Man Called Otto”.
For his latest film, the US actor and producer uses well-known material. The Swedish author Fredrik Backman released a bestseller in 2012 with “A Man Called Ove”. Three years later there was already a Swedish film adaptation of Hannes Holm.
Swedish original
“I was immediately impressed,” says Hanks in an interview with dpa. He saw the Swedish version with his wife, actress Rita Wilson. She immediately stated: “This is an important film that should be shot in America right now.” David Magee (“Life of Pi: Shipwreck with Tiger”) edited the screenplay, and the German-Swiss director Marc Forster (“James Bond 007: A Quantum of Solace”) was won.
The story is about the neighborhood in an undefined settlement, somewhere in the catchment area of a nameless city. It’s about neighbors, immigrants, rusty friendships. Otto tries to keep all this under control with an exaggerated sense of order, to control, to sanction. Sometimes complete ignorance, sometimes sheer cynicism, often aggressive, always annoyed help him against friendliness and surges of empathy from his fellow human beings.
The lively Marisol (Mariana Treviño) breaks into this world with her family. Chaos spills over into Otto’s life: Suddenly he finds himself unwillingly a babysitter, can’t avoid getting help from the neighbors, even a stray cat sneaks into his home.
Nobody can do everything alone
What distinguishes the material: The plot does not get stuck with the more or less funny description of a stubborn old man, whom circumstances lead back to more empathetic levels. Otto suffers, a lot. With the death of his beloved wife, the joy in his life has disappeared. This is told in flashbacks. Otto often visits the grave, remembers there, talks about the things that suddenly happened in his life. When he needs help himself, Marisol will shake him awake: “You think you have to do everything yourself. But you know what: nobody can do it.”
Hanks himself appreciates Marisol’s attitude a lot. “Of course, everyone has the right to their own kind of privacy,” he says. “But if you don’t open your life to the influences, experiences and also inspirations that you get from others, life will be very limited. And I think living a limited life is sad.”
Many older people made the mistake of believing that less is better, Hanks says of his Otto. “And finally you start to lead a minimal version of life in which your own life actually disappears.” The actor appreciates the value of togetherness: “The spirit of a community makes the difference between happiness and loneliness.”
A Man Named Otto, USA 2022, 126 min., FSK 12, by Marc Forster, with Tom Hanks, Mariana Treviño, Rachel Keller, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo
