Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.
Most of my reviews on this site run between 750 and 1000 words. I have a feeling that Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is going to be a lot shorter than that. This is not because I don’t have something to say about the movie or because it isn’t worth talking about. Instead, it’s because this is the sort of movie that you’re either going to be drawn to or you are not, and there’s not going to be a great deal of middle ground. You’re either going to be enamored of Fred Rogers and the philosophy he seemed to live with every fiber of his being, or you’re not.
On the surface, Fred Rogers would seem to be anathema to me. I am open about my lack of religious belief and falling away from the church; Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister. Where I can have a temper that does me no credit, Rogers was a man of calm and peace. He appears by all accounts and by everyone who knew him to be a genuinely good man as well as someone overflowing with true kindness. I recently told someone that, while I strive to be a good person as much as I can, I find that I am frequently not a nice one. I don’t always “person” very well, and Fred Rogers may well have been the best at personing in the last century.
