A Man Called Otto

I had a rare opportunity to watch a couple of movies on my own this Saturday, so no Disney or MCU…YAY!

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy those movies too, but sometimes, I just want a grown-up story. So I checked my ever-expanding list of movies I plan on watching and I pick the first one that came up. Let me tell you, I didn’t have “Spend Saturday night alone crying.” on my bingo card for this week, yet here we are!

A Man Called Otto stars Tom Hanks as Otto Anderson, a retired widower intent on ending his own life so he can join his beloved Sonya in the afterlife. Otto is your typical grumpy old man who thinks the world is going to hell in a handbasket. On the surface, it looks like Tom Hanks doing his best Walter Matthau impression, but it’s so much more than that!

Otto’s very routine life is thrown into chaos by a young family moving in across the street. The family is made up of: a bumbling father Tommy—played against type by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo—who can’t even back up a car with a trailer, much to Otto’s annoyance; two young daughters Luna and Abbie; and a pregnant, fiery, tell-it-like-it-is mother named Marisol played brilliantly by Mariana Treviño.

Throughout the story, we learn more about why Otto is the way he is through flashbacks to when he was a younger man—played by Tom Hanks’ son Truman Hanks. We learn how he meets the love of his life Sonya—played by Rachel Keller— and eventually how he loses her as well.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a depressing film. It’s actually quite uplifting, with a few genuinely gleeful moments, usually centered around Marisol’s character. One scene in particular when Otto is in the hospital and Marisol learns something about a medical condition that has plagued Otto his entire life is a genuinely funny moment played perfectly by Mariana.

I won’t give anything away, but I’ll say this. I don’t know why this story hit me this hard. Perhaps, as I get older, I identify more with Otto than I do with the people around him. I really enjoyed this film.

Some of the characters throughout the story were a little 2-dimensional. For example, some of Otto’s neighbours, the woman with the annoying toy dog, the jogger, the evil real estate guy—played by Mike Birbiglia—that was a gutsy casting choice.

Then there was Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, who was horribly wasted as Tommy, Marisol’s husband. He normally has such a presence onscreen, but in this film, he shrinks into the background.

However, I did really like the story of Malcolm—played by Mack Bayda—a transgender boy who gets kicked out of his home by his intolerant parents. I would have loved to get a little bit more of that story.

Minor quibbles aside, I really enjoyed this film and enjoyed discovering some new talents to keep an eye on like Mariana Treviño and Mack Bayda.