Remake with Tom Hanks News

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. Apart from his petty exhortations and unnecessary bickering, he is largely retired. Tom Hanks is “A Man Called Otto”.

For his latest film, the American actor and producer uses familiar material. 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, the actress Rita Wilson. She immediately said, “This is an important film to be shot in America now.” David Magee (“Life of Pi: Shipwreck with Tiger”) edited the screenplay, and German-Swiss director Marc Forster (“James Bond 007: A Quantum of Solace”) was tapped.

The story concerns the neighborhood in an undefined settlement, somewhere in the catchment area of ​​an unnamed city. It’s about neighbors, immigrants, rusty friendships. Otto tries to keep it all under control with an exaggerated sense of order, to control, to sanction. Sometimes complete ignorance, sometimes pure cynicism, often aggressive, always irritated helps him against kindness and impulses of empathy from his fellow man.

The vivacious Marisol (Mariana Treviño) breaks into this world with her family. Chaos spills over into Otto’s life: Suddenly he reluctantly finds himself a babysitter, can’t avoid getting help from the neighbors, even a stray cat sneaks into his house.

No one can do everything alone

What sets the material apart: The plot does not get bogged down in the more or less funny description of a stubborn old man, whose circumstances lead him back to more empathetic levels. Otto suffers a lot. With the death of his beloved wife, the joy in his life disappeared. It 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: no one can do it.”

Hanks himself really appreciates Marisol’s attitude. “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 you get from others, life will be very limited. And I think living a limited life is sad.”

Many older people have made the mistake of believing that less is better, Hanks says of his Otto. “And eventually you start living 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