I never watched Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood as a child but I had a great phone conversation last week with a friend who enjoys watching it now while high as an adult. I’ll paraphrase a lot here, but “it’s just so reaffirming,” he said. “Like he would basically do this ‘How It’s Made’ segment every once in a while and you would watch Mister Rogers narrate how a factory makes, like, crayons or something. And the entire time he isn’t trying to explain how the crayons are made or to be smarter than you. He’s just going ‘my, my, my, look at all those crayons. Think about all the drawings that will be made with those crayons! What would you draw?’ and you’re just thinking ‘oh my god you’re so right! Those are a lot of crayons!’”
I can’t help but feel that listening to recounted episodes of stoned Mister Rogers viewing imparted the spirit of the late Rogers’ work on me more than Won’t You Be My Neighbor. It’s a perfectly fine film but I left the theater thinking I’d just paid twelve dollars to watch a documentary that should’ve been on Netflix. While Won’t You Be My Neighbor generally outlines the life of Fred Rogers and the evolution of his children’s show, it’s not a biographical documentary more so than a series of interviews narrating a somewhat disorganized quilt of hand-picked vignettes of the show’s more impactful episodes and periods in Rogers’ life.
Because it’s not truly biographical, Won’t You Be My Neighbor meanders wistfully from topic to topic. That meandering nature can be a bit disorienting for someone wondering where the film is going and it's largely responsible for the fact that the film doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s like a much more chill version of Chris Farley’s interview skits on Saturday Night Live, as if to say “Hey guys, remember when Mister Rogers did that segment about assassination after Bobby was shot? Yeah… wasn’t that revolutionary? …Hey and also what about that time Eddie Murphy did the Mister Robinson skit… wasn’t that mean? Yeah….” Won’t You Be My Neighbor is mostly a Greatest Hits compilation of some of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood more famous moments without really exploring how they were so impactful outside of juxtaposing them with the appropriate historical context and, more importantly, why they’re still relevant today.
Like some of the interviewees featured in the film, my showing was full of people who grew up with Mister Rogers and who sniffled and sobbed during some of the more emotional scenes. Won’t You Be My Neighbor, to its credit, spends a great deal of screen time focusing on Rogers’ fixation with ensuring his messages were designed and presented in creative ways that would connect with audiences of all ages on deeply personal levels. While the point of Won’t You Be My Neighbor isn’t to beat Rogers himself at his own game, I didn't get that sort of personal connection with the film and it left me with only a marginally better sense of what made Rogers the man that he was.
Considering director Morgan Neville’s past work and his unique knack for delving into the personalities and the interpersonal dynamics of his real-life subjects (20 Feet From Stardom and Best of Enemies are notable examples) it’s strange that this film puts forward relatively little effort to make Rogers relatable. Won’t You Be My Neighbor makes half-hearted suggestions about Rogers’ own motivations in life rather than asking how Rogers’ own life experiences shaped the man America watched on TV and how that affected the lives of so many children who watched his shows. Why did he go out of his way to include people of all races, abilities, etc. on television? “I dunno, maybe because he was bullied for his weight when he was young?” Why did he tell a gay cast member he had to hide his identity in public? “Maybe because homosexuality wasn’t widely accepted, right?” What does all this mean for us today, what with the obvious parallels between what’s happening now and what was happening in Rogers’ time? “No answer.”
That Won't You Be My Neighbor specifically doesn't attempt to explain everything about its subject might be refreshing in the documentary field. Explainumentaries are a tired trope in documentary film in much the same way origin stories are for the superhero genre. I won't give Won't You Be My Neighbor credit for this, though, because it simply replaces explanation with nostalgia. It's an odd storytelling choice that leaves a lot on the table. Neville was probably right to leave the explanations up to viewers, but Fred Rogers' immense contributions to American culture in general and the effects he had on so many now-grown children individually shouldn't be left out, either (and they probably would've made a better movie). All stories, even biographies, need key points, conclusions, or morals that readers and viewers can take away. Won't You Be My Neighbor provides few of them.
Make no mistake that Won’t You Be My Neighbor is the highest-grossing biographical documentary in history likely because of the time in which it’s premiering. Nostalgia alone can’t explain the mass appeal of this film; people want a feel-good reminder of what it was like to have a wholesome, fatherly voice of moral reason present to assuage your most instinctive worries and fears with a soothing voice wrapped in a tasteful sweater. If that’s what you’re going to the theater for (and let’s be honest, we should all need that right now), Won’t You Be My Neighbor more than delivers.
I write this fully realizing, as I said at the beginning, that I didn’t grow up with Mister Rogers. I’d probably feel differently if I had. In the sniffles in the theater and in the voice of my friend on the phone I heard that same feeling that I get when I think about my Mister Rogers, Bill Watterson. Won’t You Be My Neighbor is a reassuring portrait of a great man, but its presentation resembles a summary of a painting in a textbook that you can buy in a gift shop of a museum just around the corner from where the painting itself hangs.
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