movie review for a man called otto

A Man Called Otto

In Marc Forster ’s genial, earnest yet unremarkable dramedy “A Man Called Otto,” the titular character Otto can’t pick his daily battles even if his life depended on it. Living in an unfussy suburban neighborhood of identical row houses somewhere in the Midwest, the aging man gets easily annoyed by every little misstep of a stranger. And his protests are so pronounced that they even rival Larry David ’s in an average episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

Portrayed by the beloved Tom Hanks in an indistinct performance that splits the difference between quirky and grounded, Otto is often right about his grievances, to his credit. Why should he pay for six feet of rope and waste a few extra cents, for instance, when he bought just a little over five? Why shouldn’t he warn inconsiderate drivers who often block garage doors or entitled neighbors who can’t as much as remember to close a gate and respect basic rules about trash disposal? Or pick up a fuss when the soulless real estate guys from the fictional and hilariously named “Dye & Merica” show up to sabotage the community’s peace?

Then again, not everything is as awful as Otto makes them out to be. And he could perhaps afford to have some manners himself, especially when a new, very pregnant neighbor drops by with a bowl of home-cooked meal as a courtesy.

If you’ve already seen 2015’s Oscar-nominated Swedish hit “ A Man Called Ove ” by Hannes Holm , a film that is not any better or worse than this middle-of-the-road American remake (yes, not all originals are automatically superior), you’ll know that Otto hasn’t always been this insufferable. In small doses of syrupy and visually overworked flashbacks, Forster and agile screenwriter David Magee show us that he was socially awkward even from his young days, but at least nice and approachable. With a squarely unstylish side-part haircut that aptly gives out a “nice but unworldly guy” vibe, young Otto (played by the star’s own son, Truman Hanks) had an interest in engineering, in figuring out how things work. His life apparently changed when he accidentally met the dreamy Sonya ( Rachel Keller ), who later on became his wife and passed away recently.

As was the case in “Ove,” Otto can’t wait to join his wife on the other side, but his frequent suicide attempts get interrupted in episodes that are sometimes awkwardly funny, and other times, just plain awkward. The chief interrupters of our get-off-my-lawn guy are the abovementioned new neighbors: the happily married-with-kids couple Marisol (a bubbly and scene-stealing Mariana Treviño , the absolute best thing about the film) and Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Ruflo), who often ask little favors from the grumpy Otto. There are also others in the neighborhood, like a kindly transgender teenager Malcolm (Mack Bayda) thrown out of his house by his dad, the fitness-obsessed Jimmy ( Cameron Britton ), Otto’s old friend Rueben ( Peter Lawson Jones), and his wife Anita (Juanita Jennings), who are no longer on cordial terms with Otto. And let’s not forget a stray cat that no one seems to know what to do with for a while.

The mystery is that none of the supporting personalities in this story can take a hint about Otto, at least not well into the film’s second act. Instead, all the characters collectively treat Otto with patience and acceptance, as if he isn’t being willfully rude to them every chance he gets. For example, it’s anyone’s guess why Otto’s work colleagues bother to throw him a retirement party when it will surely go unappreciated or why Marisol continuously insists on trying to bring out the good side of him when Otto offensively shuts down every one of her genuine attempts.

Still, the story manages to land some charms when Otto finally lets his guard down and starts making all the expected amends, while suffering a rare heart condition on the side. First, he becomes a local hero when he unwittingly saves someone’s life in front of a group of unhelpful people too preoccupied with their phones. Later on, he racks up additional goodwill when he takes Malcolm in and builds a slow yet steady friendship with Marisol, a rewarding storyline in an otherwise predictable tale.

But the biggest win of Forster’s adaptation is its worthwhile message about the small wins of everyday people who operate as a functioning and harmonious community against the evils of faceless corporations. “A Man Called Otto” isn’t exactly as philosophical as “ About Schmidt ” or as socially conscious as “ I, Daniel Blake ,” two films that occasionally hit similar notes. But it’s nevertheless a wholesome crowd-pleaser for your next family gathering.

In limited release now, wide on January 13th.

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to  RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

• Tom Hanks as Otto Anderson
• Mariana Treviño as Marisol
• Kailey Hyman as Barb
• Rachel Keller as
• Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as
• Cameron Britton as
• Mike Birbiglia as
• Elle Chapman as Sarah
• David Magee
• Fredrik Backman
• Marc Forster
• Matt Chesse

Director of Photography

• Matthias Koenigswieser

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‘A Man Called Otto’ Review: Tom Hanks Learns Life Lessons

Going against nice-guy type (at first), the star plays a misanthrope who’s pulled into caring for a neighboring family in need.

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By Glenn Kenny

In 2016, reviewing the film “A Man Called Ove” for this newspaper, I mused: “Sweden’s official entry for a best foreign-language film at the Academy Awards proves that Swedish pictures can be just as sentimental and conventionally heartwarming as Hollywood ones.”

That movie, based on a best-selling Swedish novel, is about a thoroughgoing grump who becomes suicidal after the death of his wife, until interactions with new neighbors soften his heart. One supposes an American remake was inevitable, and here it is, directed by Marc Forster and starring Tom Hanks, with the main character renamed Otto.

Usually U.S. remakes of foreign films tend to homogenize the source material. But “A Man Called Otto” is not only more bloated than the Swedish film, it’s more outré, in a way that’s hard to pin down.

Forster handles the flashback of the back story (in which the star’s son, Truman Hanks, plays a younger Otto) in gauzy-arty fashion. When the older Otto — Hanks reaches back to his excellent work in “Catch Me If You Can” to nail down the man’s overarching irritability — contemplates his happy marriage, his mind always goes back to its earliest times. It’s curious, until the film reveals why it has avoided more recent memories, but by then the omission feels like a withholding cheat.

Otherwise, obviousness rules the day here. When Otto visits an incapacitated former friend, the soundtrack spins Kenny Dorham’s version of the jazz chestnut “Old Folks.” Which is always nice to hear, admittedly. Later, a teenager initially upbraided by Otto tells him that Otto’s wife, who had been a schoolteacher, “was the only person who didn’t treat me like a freak, because I’m transgender.” As the television icon Marcia Brady once put it, “Oh my nose!”

A Man Called Otto Rated PG-13 for themes and language. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes. In theaters.

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Sean “diddy” combs arrested in new york following grand jury indictment, ‘a man called otto’ review: tom hanks in a predictable but touching portrait of grief and resilience.

The Oscar winner plays the title role in this remake of the hit Swedish film about a curmudgeonly widower learning to embrace life again.

By Frank Scheck

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Set in an unnamed Rust Belt town that has clearly seen better days (the movie was filmed in Pittsburgh), this American version directed by Marc Forster ( Finding Neverland ) closely follows its Swedish predecessor in most regards. Otto, who has recently been pushed out of his engineering managerial job, mainly spends his time scowling and grunting at anyone who has the temerity to cross his path and enforcing the rules of his gated neighborhood, which is controlled by the sort of real-estate company whose smarmy representative ( Mike Birbiglia , in a role making little use of his comic talents) would have made a suitable villain in a Frank Capra movie.  

His humanity only emerges during his regular visits to her grave, where he makes it clear that he intends to join her soon. It’s also revealed in a series of flashbacks to his younger days, in which the young Otto (Truman Hanks, Tom’s son, bearing an uncanny resemblance to his old man) has a meet-cute with Sonya (Rachel Keller, suitably endearing) when he boards a train going in the wrong direction in order to return a book she’s dropped. We see the couple moving into the home where the middle-aged Otto still lives and making friends with their neighbors, and then Sonya getting pregnant and tragically losing the baby in a bus accident that results in her being confined to a wheelchair.

The storyline’s less convincing elements include Otto becoming a social media sensation after he’s filmed rescuing an elderly man who’s fallen onto train tracks. That allows him to exploit his newfound fame when the real estate company attempts to evict his longtime neighbors after they experience major health issues. It’s the sort of melodramatic plot contrivance that feels wholly unnecessary, as if screenwriter David Magee didn’t trust that the story of a grief-stricken man regaining his will to live would carry enough emotional weight.

But it’s hard to mind too much, thanks to Hanks’ perfectly modulated, understated performance — he’s truly moving when you feel Otto’s frost slowly starting to thaw — and the welcome comic moments that alleviate the film’s more heavy-handed aspects. There’s a particularly wonderful moment when Otto winds up in the hospital after collapsing in the street and Marisol is gravely informed that his heart is “too big.” Instead of registering alarm, she collapses into hysterical laughter, with Otto having the grace to fully get the joke.

Although A Man Called Otto never fully rises above its obvious plot machinations, director Forster thankfully applies a fairly restrained, subtle approach. The result is a film to which you ultimately find yourself succumbing even though you never stop being aware that your heartstrings are being shamelessly pulled.

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A Man Called Otto Reviews

Foster’s adaption and Magee’s script works well capturing themes of depression, while also providing moments that are uplifting.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 26, 2024

Once again, Tom Hanks prevails.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 15, 2024

A terrific Tom Hanks in an endearing dark-comedy.

Full Review | Jun 11, 2024

A Man Called Otto is not a waste of time by any stretch, but it also does not demand your attention in any strong measure.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Feb 28, 2024

I did occasionally find it just a bit too pat and too contrived to melt my more critical lens entirely, but it won me over with its nicely handled comedic touches, lovely performances, and both its clear-eyed positivity and its shamelessly huge heart.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 31, 2023

If not for Tom Hanks, "A Man Called Otto" might be a boring tale of one grumpy man's perseverance against the elements trying to take him down. But it's because of Hanks that the film succeeds.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

The drama movie is touching but never truly remarkable.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 25, 2023

Despite having a somewhat interesting start with the presence of Hanks as the unfriendly neighbor, it is a remake that loses the desired dramatic effect by sometimes going down the route of calculated poignancy. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | May 19, 2023

Tom Hanks was an absolute blast to watch on screen, and his interaction with his co-stars were some of my favorite scenes in the movie. He commanded the screen with his betrayal of Otto.

Full Review | Apr 29, 2023

It proves again, the everyman of the movies, can play any mood or soul. The movie is patient, and a special shoutout to Mariana Trevino for taking a slightly underwritten role and giving it depth.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Apr 27, 2023

Subtle, sincerely redemptive comedic drama...Tom Hanks delivers a carefully modulated, understated performance, as does his 'real-life' son Truman, but the script tends to be overly melodramatic.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 6, 2023

The director is Marc Forster of Monster's Ball. For sure, his saccharine movie is not hard to like, if only because he is a pro at manipulating heartstrings and Hanks cannot help but be affable, however ill-suited for his role here.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 23, 2023

Tom Hanks gets in touch with his inner Larry David as the curmudgeonly sexegenarian at the heart of Marc Forster’s lukewarm English-language remake of Hannes Holm’s Oscar-nominated “A Man Called Ova.”

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Mar 13, 2023

With Hanks as its star, Marc Forster’s safe Hollywood remake is all the more predictable.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 2, 2023

A Man Called Otto is mechanically engineered for maximum lachrymosal extraction.

Full Review | Feb 28, 2023

Tom Hanks is trying to channel his inner Clint Eastwood for this US adaptation of Fredrik Bachman’s Swedish best-seller - the problem is, he simply isn’t grouchy enough

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 26, 2023

A film that gets by thanks to Hanks' unwavering watchability though there's not a beat or a revelation we haven't seen before and taking its biggest emotional cue directly from She's Having a Baby is an annoyingly misguided choice.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 16, 2023

This slice of superior schmaltz has Tom Hanks as a fastidious late-middle-aged grump who hates everyone, from overcharging shop assistants to neighbours who put their recycling in the wrong bin.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 15, 2023

Tom Hanks does his best to look mean, but his inherent affability never fails to shine through. Otto discovers to his disgust that there is no avoiding mushiness.

Full Review | Feb 11, 2023

With a terrific supporting cast – Mariana Trevino is the MVP of this journey, and she’s a force of nature as the kind neighbor Marisol. Without her as a counterpart, this would be a difficult, one-note story.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Feb 3, 2023

‘A Man Called Otto’ Review: Tom Hanks Plays a Florid Grump

Hanks is well-cast as a misanthropic loner, but the film lacks the courage of his caustic conviction.

By Owen Gleiberman

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Hanks harumphs with an irresistible self-justifying logic, and the clueless response on the part of the store’s millennial clerks, who are doing all they can to accommodate his tantrum, is the icing on the high-dudgeon cake. The secret weapon of a scene like this one is that even though Otto is overreacting like a jerk, in his petty and snappish way he’s sort of right. It should bother people, a little bit, that a corporation designs it so you can’t just buy five feet of rope.  

But David Magee, who wrote the script of “A Man Called Otto” (inspired by the 2015 Swedish film “A Man Called Ove”), and Marc Forster, who directed it, don’t have anything that witty in mind. The film starts off rooted in the real world but turns into a soft-headed “redemptive” fairy tale. Everything gets turned up a notch; even the potentially uproarious scene of Otto dishing out abuse to a hospital clown withers in the clown’s telegraphed overreaction. The movie is trying so hard to be a crowd-pleaser, in its reach-for-the-synthetic, sitcom-meets-Hallmark heart, that it will likely end up pleasing very few. It’s the definition of a movie that Tom Hanks deserved better than.      

Otto, in case you were wondering, plans to use that five feet of rope to kill himself. He’s still reeling from the recent death of his wife, and he intends to hang himself in his living room (from a hole he punches into the ceiling — a doomed plan or what?). I’ve never been crazy about botched-suicide comedy, going back to the prelude sequence of “Harold and Maude” (sorry, not a fan of that calculated cult ’70s quirkfest). The reason isn’t that I think it’s so scandalous but that it’s actually, under the surface, quite sentimental. The joke is always the same: that the suicides fail because the person… really wants to live . In this case, the idea that Hanks’ Otto has given up on life is a conceit the audience scarcely pretends to buy.

Otto occupies a condo in the same soothing blue prefab row-house development he has lived in ever since he married Sonya (Rachel Keller), the true love he first spotted on a Philadelphia train platform — she dropped her book! He picked it up and ran after her! All the way to the other side of the platform! — when he was a young man.

The film is threaded with flashbacks to their relationship, and they’re built on the potentially effective stunt casting of Truman Hanks, Hanks’s 27-year-old son, as the younger Otto, who came to Philly to enlist in the military, which turned into a doomed mission. Hanks’ acerbic actor son Colin has often seemed a chip off the old block, but Truman Hanks comes off as notably sweeter, softer, and more benign than his dad. In almost any movie you’d have to squint to buy him as the young Tom Hanks, but in this movie, where we have to believe that this angelic nerd evolves into a sharp-tongued malcontent, it’s far too jarring a leap.

In case all those don’t get to you, the movie makes a point of throwing in a transgender former student of Sonya’s, who’s there to demonstrate that Otto may grouse at the world but that he sees it entirely without prejudice. He’s a hater with a heart of gold. “A Man Called Otto” wants to lift our spirits, but the trouble with it is that the nicer Otto gets, the more naggingly fake the movie becomes. It should have been called “Florid-est Grump.”

Reviewed at AMC Lincoln Square, Dec. 16, 2022. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 126 MIN.

• Production: A Sony Pictures Entertainment release of a Columbia Pictures, Stage 6 Films, SF Productions, Play-Tone production. Producers: Fredrik Wikström Nicastro, Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman. Executive producers: Marc Forster, Renée Wolfe, Louise Rosner, David Magee, Michael Porseryd, Tim King, Sudie Smyth, Steven Shareshian, Celia Costas, Neda Backman, Tor Jonasson.
• Crew: Director: Marc Forster. Screenplay: David Magee. Camera: Mathuas Koenigswieser. Editor: Matt Chessé. Music: Thomas Newman.
• With: Tom Hanks, Mariana Treviño, Rachel Keller, Truman Hanks, Mike Birbiglia, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo.  

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Review: Tom Hanks gives ‘A Man Called Otto’ an easygoing sincerity

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It says something about the current state of studio filmmaking in Hollywood that all the things that make “A Man Called Otto” stand out are things that really should make it commonplace. The film is made with a level of craft and simple competence that has become shockingly rare. A genuine movie star is allowed to radiate charisma and charm, and all the performances have character nuance and emotional depth.

These should be the basic building blocks of Hollywood moviemaking and yet here we are, with “A Man Called Otto” feeling special for being a winsome dramedy with some effective moments of tearjerking tenderness. It’s not so much a matter of they don’t make them like this anymore as they should be making them like this all the time.

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Directed by Marc Forster, the film is based on the 2012 novel “A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman, which became an international bestseller and previously was adapted into a 2016 Swedish film that earned two Oscar nominations. From a screenplay by David Magee, who this year also wrote the adapted screenplays for “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and “The School for Good and Evil,” the new film finds enough ways to update the core material to keep it fresh.

As the film opens, Otto (Tom Hanks) is buying a few bits and pieces at a hardware store and then gets into an argument with a clerk about whether he is being overcharged by a few cents for a length of rope. Once he is back at his modest, meticulously kept row house, it is revealed that Otto plans to kill himself, but life keeps getting in the way.

There are his new neighbors, Marisol and Tommy (Mariana Treviño and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), a young couple with two small children and expecting another. The trans kid who delivers the newspapers was a student of Otto’s deceased wife, a teacher. Otto also finds himself reconnecting with a pair of longtime neighbors with whom he had a falling-out. Even a self-styled “social media journalist” won’t leave him alone after Otto, who had intended to throw himself onto the tracks, saves a man from being struck by a train.

Otto seems at first to be a rigid, stuck-in-his-ways old man similar to the type Clint Eastwood has played recently in films such as “Gran Torino,” “The Mule” and “Cry Macho,” men who must learn to overcome their prejudices. Otto, largely because of circumstances revealed around his late wife (played in flashbacks by Rachel Keller), is more readily open-minded and open-hearted than those Eastwood characters. He is nevertheless endlessly aggravated by others for a perceived lack of knowledge or abilities.

The film is an odd companion to Hanks’ recent, more willfully weird turn as Colonel Tom Parker in “Elvis,” which found him working against an accent and prosthetics and a fanciful villainous characterization. His role in “Otto” plays to Hanks’ more obvious strengths, his essential affability even when he is presenting a gruff, unyielding exterior. The sweet heart of the character is never too far below the surface.

“A Man Called Otto” is also something of a family affair, with Rita Wilson, Hanks’ wife, as one of the producers and co-writing and performing the song “Til You’re Home.” In flashback scenes, young Otto is played by one of Hanks’ and Wilson’s children, Truman Hanks. And in one of the film’s slyer jokes, the hip-hop song “White Boy Summer” by their son Chet Hanks is used to personify a certain kind of clueless obliviousness in others.

The real standout in the supporting cast is Treviño, a comedy star in her native Mexico who brings real energy and feeling to her role as one of Otto’s new neighbors. She barges into Otto’s orderly life and brings a bit of chaos with her, inserting a much-needed liveliness into the movie as well. Mike Birbiglia is also well cast playing against type as a sleazy real estate developer.

It is not meant as faint praise to say that “A Man Called Otto” is nice. The film has an easygoing, please-like-me quality that somehow never comes off as desperate but instead gives it a reassuring quality, like a mug of warm tea. It’s borderline corny, but sometimes corny can mean unselfconscious, willing to be unguarded in its sincerity. The tender message of hopefulness and spiritual renewal is a welcome tonic as the year comes to a close.

'A Man Called Otto'

Rated: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving suicide attempts, and language. Running time: 2 hours, 6 minutes Playing: Starts Dec. 30, AMC the Grove, Los Angeles; AMC Century City

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A Man Called Otto review: Tom Hanks anchors a sweet drama

“A Man Called Otto is a straightforward drama that often veers too far into sentimentality but is nonetheless frequently saved by Tom Hanks' reliably charming lead performance.”

• Tom Hanks' moving lead performance
• Mariana Treviño's breakout supporting performance
• The film's surprisingly deadpan sense of humor
• Several superfluous, overly sweet flashbacks
• A few poorly-placed needle drops
• An inconsistent tone

A Man Called Otto is the kind of straightforward, inoffensive dramedy that used to be incredibly common. Nowadays, Hollywood seems less and less interested in producing movies like A Man Called Otto , though, even during the end-of-the-year holiday season that has always seemed well-suited for middling-budget, family-friendly dramas like it. That fact doesn’t make A Man Called Otto a particularly unique or boundary-pushing film. It does, however, make it feel like a relic from a different time.

That’s OK, because Otto, as played here by Tom Hanks , is a bit of a relic himself. Not only is Hanks’ likable curmudgeon one of the oldest residents of his Midwest neighborhood when A Man Called Otto begins, but he’s also desperate to shuffle off this mortal coil as quickly and efficiently as he can. Of course, Otto isn’t nearly as stone cold as he makes himself out to be, nor is his desire to die as unwavering as he claims. His path from embittered pessimist to renewed optimist is clear from the moment A Man Called Otto begins, and the film itself doesn’t have too much to offer in terms of ingenuity or originality.

The film is, in fact, exactly what any reasonably well-versed moviegoer may expect it to be, but that doesn’t mean it’s without its charms.

A Man Called Otto is the second film adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s 2012 novel, A Man Called Ove , which was previously adapted as a Swedish-language movie in 2015. Both Backman’s original novel and director Hannes Holm’s 2015 adaptation tell virtually the same story as A Man Called Otto . The new film follows Hanks’ grumpy older man as his attempts to end his life are repeatedly interrupted by the sudden arrival of his newest neighbors, Marisol (a scene-stealing Mariana Treviño) and Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), as well as their two plucky young daughters.

It isn’t long before both Marisol and Tommy have inserted themselves into Otto’s life. In doing so, they open the door for Otto’s past to be explored via a series of often saccharine flashbacks that offer glimpses into Otto’s marriage to Sonya (Rachel Keller), who died just a few months prior to Marisol and Tommy’s arrival. Sonya’s death, combined with his forced retirement, briefly but understandably render Otto uninterested in life. Fortunately, his unexpected friendship with Marisol gives Otto’s previously sweet self the chance to reemerge.

The film’s story is not, by any means, a particularly original one. Marc Forster’s direction and David Magee’s open-hearted screenplay don’t go out of their way to inject many new surprises or instances of structural invention into A Man Called Otto , either. Instead, the film is perfectly content to rely solely on the dramatic strength of its undeniably simple story and the performances given by its cast members.

Thankfully, Forster’s instincts aren’t totally off base in A Man Called Otto , a film that has, among other things, Tom Hanks going for it. As Otto, Hanks alternates between cartoonishly grumpy and understatedly sorrowful with the kind of precision that only a performer as experienced as him could muster. Throughout the film, Forster effectively juxtaposes Hanks’ seasoned, unassuming presence with the live-wire energy conjured by his scene-stealing co-star, Treviño. Together, Treviño and Hanks make for an infectiously likable duo.

The two stars’ chemistry is so good that A Man Called Otto is often at its best whenever it’s focusing on Marisol and Otto’s growing friendship. Otto’s relationships with several of his other neighbors, including the endlessly joyful Jimmy (Cameron Britton), provide the film with moments of effective humor and heart as well. However, while Hanks’ real-life son, Truman, makes for a believable version of Otto’s younger self, the flashbacks involving him and Keller’s Sonya are often so one-note that they add little except extra minutes to A Man Called Otto ’s runtime.

In addition to the film’s superfluous flashbacks, Forster makes a handful of creative mistakes throughout A Man Called Otto , including one badly timed needle drop. Magee’s script also invests little time in setting up or exploring Mike Birbiglia’s unnamed real estate agent, who just so happens to be the closest thing the film has to an antagonist. Altogether, these decisions lead the film toward a strangely lackluster climax. The film itself also runs about 10 or 15 minutes longer than it should, which similarly takes some of the weight away from A Man Called Otto ’s otherwise bittersweet final moments.

For all of its faults, though, A Man Called Otto still succeeds solely on the power of Hanks and Treviño’s performances. The film is not, by any means, as cohesive or emotionally stirring as many of its team members’ previous efforts, but it’s a harmless and charming affair nonetheless. Ultimately, that’s just another way of saying that A Man Called Otto really is just like the family-friendly, end-of-the-year dramas that Hollywood used to annually put out, the best of which could be relied upon to supply enough laughs and heartwarming moments to justify their holiday-timed releases. A Man Called Otto , for its part, does just that.

A Man Called Otto is playing in theaters now. 

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A Man Called Otto

Otto is a grump who's given up on life following the loss of his wife and wants to end it all. When a young family moves in nearby, he meets his match in quick-witted Marisol, leading to a f... Read all Otto is a grump who's given up on life following the loss of his wife and wants to end it all. When a young family moves in nearby, he meets his match in quick-witted Marisol, leading to a friendship that will turn his world around. Otto is a grump who's given up on life following the loss of his wife and wants to end it all. When a young family moves in nearby, he meets his match in quick-witted Marisol, leading to a friendship that will turn his world around.

• Marc Forster
• Fredrik Backman
• Hannes Holm
• David Magee
• Mariana Treviño
• Rachel Keller
• 710 User reviews
• 181 Critic reviews
• 51 Metascore
• 1 win & 8 nominations

Top cast 94

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• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia The young Otto is played by Truman Hanks , Tom's son, who was 26 years old during principal photography.
• Goofs When Otto is at the train station, one sees a line of trains parked outside. They are yellow. These rail cars are modern safecar automobile trains and didn't exist at the time the movie was set in. Most automotive carriers at the time were flat beds or side load.

Otto Anderson : [to Marisol] You have given birth to two children. Soon it will be three. You have come here from a country very far away. You learned a new language, you got yourself an education and a nitwit husband and you are holding that family together. You will have no problem learning how to drive. My god, the world is full of complete idiots who have managed to figure it out, and you are not a complete idiot. So, cluch, shift, gas, drive.

• Connections Featured in The Graham Norton Show: Tom Hanks/Naomi Ackie/Suranne Jones/Richard Osman/Rina Sawayama (2022)
• Soundtracks This Woman's Work Written and Performed by Kate Bush Courtesy of Noble & Brite Ltd

User reviews 710

• Jan 5, 2023
• How long is A Man Called Otto? Powered by Alexa
• What is the breed of cat in the film?
• January 13, 2023 (United States)
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Sony Pictures
• Un Vecino Gruñón
• Central Union Terminal, Toledo, Ohio, USA (Train Station)
• Artistic Films
• Big Indie Pictures
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $50,000,000 (estimated)
• $64,267,657
• Jan 1, 2023
• $113,359,847

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 6 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• 12-Track Digital Sound
• Dolby Surround 7.1
• Dolby Atmos

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