For a film ostensibly about trying to show greater understanding for the struggles of others, there is an almost total lack of curiosity in the way A Man Called Otto tells its story. It contains the majority of the same basic characters and general storylines from Fredrik Backman’s original Swedish book, A Man Called Ove, though without any of the same sense of care in bringing them to life. Obviously, films will only rarely be able to have the same level of detail and interiority as a novel. However, considering there was a 2015 Swedish film adaptation that already achieved this, one can only wonder what this American remake is meant to contribute to the story. The cynical feeling that it was merely about appealing to incurious viewers who are opposed to watching films with subtitles is felt in every aspect of its shoddy storytelling.
From the moment we get introduced to the titular character, a lonely grump of a man played here by serviceable yet superficial Hollywood mainstay Tom Hanks, everything feels stilted and broad in a way that the film does not have a handle on. Placing us with Otto as he deals with the loss of his wife and his own desire to join her, he is at a hardware store attempting to buy rope with which to kill himself. He grows frustrated with the employees (one of whom is played by John Higgins of the Saturday Night Live comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy, enacting a scenario the group would normally parody), and eventually storms out. It establishes early on the film’s many inadequacies that will trouble it for the entire runtime. Foremost among them is that, despite some game performances from some of the supporting cast, the balance between darker humor and a more genuine emotional heart is never struck. Everything feels clunky in its narrative fluctuations, devoid of the novel’s greater grasps at poetry and purpose to all of the events playing out.
Where the 2015 film was more adept at navigating this via a strong central performance by Rolf Lassgård, this lackluster remake just never comes close to rising to the task. One of foremost reasons for this, however much it may pain one to say it, falls at Hanks’ feet. He isn’t terrible by any means, and the role is a tough one to crack. The trouble is that he hardly seems interested in capturing any nuances beyond furrowing his brow and shouting occasionally. As Otto groans about all his frustrations with the world, there is never a hint that Hanks is doing much else besides going through the poorly edited motions. When juxtaposed alongside the infinitely more dynamic work by the joyous duo of Mariana Treviño as Marisol and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Tommy, Otto’s new neighbors that he initially despises though comes to form a connection with, the problems with the blunt performance of its lead become all the more apparent. You never believe Hanks as this character, and the film doesn’t seem to either.
It tries to cover some of this up by adding in some new backstory for Otto, but this comes at the expense of all that it excises from the source material. Where the original delicately establishes more of his fleeting relationship with his father, an integral part of informing who he is and the meaning that echoes in key scenes, that all gets lost here. Though one could generously say this is to better flesh out Otto’s life with his wife, the details of all their time together also get smoothed over. Everything is painted with the broadest strokes, obfuscating any greater emotional resonance behind superficial sentiment. Where the preceding and superior film did more with less, this film does less with more. It sells the story short at every turn, culminating in an ending that was rich when done before but now feels empty. While there is something interesting about viewing them alongside each other to see where they differ and the impact of each alteration, the original adaptation is the only one that actually does justice to Otto’s tale. ♦
A Man Called Otto
