"A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" & the False Dichotomy of Forgiveness

Some spoilers ahead

Please note, this article isn’t to bash Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. As with everything about Mr. Rogers, it’s touching and sweet, and Tom Hanks exhibits an otherworldly grace while playing someone who’d qualify for sainthood, if not for the fact that he was a Protestant. The movie isn’t really about Mr. Rogers so much as the effect his quiet strength and kindness had on other people, but it’s a pleasant balm to the soul in a troubling and uncertain time.

So it pains me to say that there’s one aspect of it that sticks in my craw a bit, and makes what could have been a great movie into just an okay one.

The actual protagonist in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a workaholic journalist and new father, although he tends to look at his infant son like someone just placed a pork roast in his arms that he didn’t ask for. Lloyd is tasked with writing a short, flattering piece about Mr. Rogers, an assignment that he initially bristles at--dammit, Jim, he’s a journalist, not a PR agent--then all but rubs his hands together in anticipation over. The cynical Lloyd thinks he can poke through Mr. Rogers’ kind and infinitely loving image and reveal the “real” person behind it, something absolutely no one but Lloyd wants, but he plows ahead anyway.

Much to Lloyd’s surprise, Mr. Rogers is not easily pinned down. He dodges questions when they get too personal, and turns them around on Lloyd with all the benign smoothness of a therapist. Even without his bruised face, Mr. Rogers can tell that Lloyd is a troubled soul, who needs some compassion and guidance. Indeed, Lloyd is estranged from his father, Jerry (Chris Cooper), after Jerry abandoned Lloyd’s sick mother years earlier. Actually, “estranged” might be too gentle a word to describe Lloyd and Jerry’s relationship -- they can’t even be in the same room together, and Lloyd’s bruised face was the result of a fight with Jerry at Lloyd’s sister’s wedding.

Mr. Rogers surmises that the only way Lloyd can live a full and happy life, and be a good father to his own son, is to forgive Jerry for his failings as a parent, and gradually let go of the anger he feels towards him. However, it can’t just stop there. Lloyd must reconcile with Jerry too, and try to be a family again. He eventually gives in, and the last quarter of the film is devoted to this father-son reunion, made all the more mawkish by the fact that Jerry is dying. It’s a shameless bit of audience manipulation that leaves a sour taste in one’s mouth.

For much of the film, Lloyd’s refusal to have anything to do with his father is perceived as unreasonable, even cruel. His wife, Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson), who should have his back in this more than anyone else, is particularly perturbed by it. She doesn’t respect the boundaries Lloyd has set for himself, as illustrated in a scene when Lloyd comes home from work to find Jerry and Andrea amicably chatting in his apartment, eating pizza like it’s a casual, friendly visit. This is a reunion by ambush, and it’s something Lloyd has already endured earlier in the film, when his sister announces at the last minute that she’s invited Jerry to her wedding. The onus is on Lloyd to grin and go along with it, and when he doesn’t, he’s shamed for it. If you ask me, cheating on and abandoning your dying mother is a pretty good reason to never speak to one’s father again, but what do I know?

The last time my mother and I were in the same room together was three years ago, at my brother’s wedding (where we did not, in fact, get into a fistfight). It was fine, I was neither happy nor upset to see her, and when it was over I walked away knowing that I would be okay if I never saw her again. Every couple of months she sends me a friend request on Facebook, because she’s a Boomer and keeps making new accounts, and I quietly delete them. 

I could give you a long list of the things she’s done that led me to make this decision, but, frankly, it’s none of your business. I don’t owe anyone an explanation, although people certainly have demanded one. I’ve gotten the shocked “but she’s your mother” reactions, the lectures on how blood is thicker than water, the insistence that I’ll regret it when she’s gone. Maybe, but I don’t regret it now, and while I miss the concept of having a mother, I don’t miss her. Cutting her off wasn’t a rash decision made in the heat of anger. It took many years of disappointment, dashed expectations, and a lot of guilt before I got to the point where I realized that I didn’t have to put myself through this anymore if I didn’t want to. The only reason I was trying to maintain some semblance of a mother-daughter relationship with her was because I was supposed to, which is the reason a lot of us spend time with people who make us unhappy. 

It was an empty transaction. We offered each other nothing, there was no give and take. The only thing I got out of it was a smug sense of superiority in the knowledge that I was being the bigger person. It wasn’t much of a payoff for more years of being made to feel small and inconsequential, and of being reminded of all the times in our life together when she should have chosen me, but chose something else instead. Near the end of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Jerry tells Lloyd “I’ve always loved you,” and that flips the ol’ FORGIVE switch in Lloyd’s brain. I’m not sure how I would react if my mother told me such a thing. If that were true, as the saying goes, she had a funny way of showing it.

We are a culture that fetishizes the idea of forgiveness. We’re moved by stories about rape survivors meeting with their attackers (if they’re ever caught) and accepting their apologies. We cried real tears when Botham Jean’s brother not only forgave, but hugged the woman who “accidentally” shot Jean to death after “accidentally” walking into his apartment. We often criticize those who are less eager to forgive, no matter how half-hearted and insincere an apology they may receive. What, they said they were sorry, what more do you want?

I want to be believed when I say that I am really fine with the idea of never talking to my mother again. I don’t need a third party to step in and broker a peace treaty between the two of us. I’m not mad at her anymore. I don’t feel anything towards her, least of all obligation. As I hash out years of disordered thinking, a considerable amount of it caused by her, getting an apology from her and offering my forgiveness is very low on my priority list. I don’t know if my mother even realizes she did anything wrong, and, if she does, she probably feels justified in it. I have, quite simply, wasted enough time.

Forgiveness and letting go of your anger are two different things, and anyone who tries to convince you that one cannot be achieved without the other is trying to sell you a self-help book. You don’t have to forgive your rapist to recover from it. You don’t have to forgive your cheating ex to be able to move on to a healthier relationship. You don’t have to forgive an abusive parent to understand that it wasn’t your fault. Forgiveness is a gift that not everyone deserves, and we’re on this planet a finite amount of time, not enough to worry about making things right with the people who wronged us. You don’t have to free them in order to free yourself.

I’d love to say I’m aspiring to be like Mr. Rogers -- as we all should -- but, y’know, sometimes people really are one of a kind. My peace of mind comes from letting go of my anger, trying to keep it in check when it rears its head, forgiving myself for holding onto it for so long, and directing that spiritual energy towards the people who love me and demonstrate it by accepting me, by never making me feel small and worthless. I like to think there’s a certain grace in that.