“World’s Worst Neighbor”: The Vulnerability of Trumpism at the Hands of Tom Hanks

Of all the faces that populate high-stakes Hollywood, probably Tom Hanks is one of the few who can star in ‘An Amazing Friend’ and ‘The World’s Worst Neighbor’ in just three years. One of the nicest characters of him and one of the most unpleasant. Kindness and bitterness, optimism and misanthropy. And these are just the latest two roles in a successful career filled with acting milestones in film history, whether it’s uncovering a box of chocolates in “Forrest Gump,” shooting a tank in “Saving the Private Ryan” or make friends with a dance in ‘Shipwrecked’.

On this occasion, Hanks becomes “The World’s Worst Neighbor,” Otto Anderson, a grumpy old retiree whose last wish is order and good citizenship.. He scolds every passing car in his uptown neighborhood, rummages through the trash grumbling in case he finds something inappropriate in the wrong bin, and is ashamed of the neighbors who come out running in tights or don’t know how to fix a poor window. In short, Otto is the neighbor that nobody wants at the beginning. When a Mexican family moves into the house across the street, Marisa (Mariana Treviño) will make the recently widowed Otto rethink the value of family and home.

‘The World’s Worst Neighbor’ is an adaptation of the novel ‘A Man Called Ove’, written by Fredrick Backman, and, in turn, It is an American remake of the Swedish film that also adapts the same screenplay: ‘A Man Called Ove’, nominated for an Oscar as best foreign language film in 2016. At the controls is Marc Forster, director of various titles such as ‘Discovering Neverland’, about the author of ‘Peter Pan’; “Comets in the Sky,” a drama about the war in Afghanistan; ‘Quantum of Solace’, part of the ‘007: James Bond’ saga; ‘World War Z’, science fiction with Brad Pitt or ‘Christopher Robin’, the live-action adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Giving it an American touch

If the theme is followed, ‘The World’s Worst Neighbor’ is extremely close to ‘Gran Torino’: an old American nostalgic for yesteryear sees how his country is going to hell while an immigrant family will change his mind. , this 66-year-old Tom Hanks, brilliant as ever in both drama and comedy (or, as in this case, both at the same time), plays the role of Clint Eastwood in the representation of the traditional, the classicto embody that part of the American population that we all know very well, and to bring to the fore a recurring theme in today’s society: forgetfulness and neglect of the elderly.

And it is that, although it is not explicitly pronounced, Otto represents the right-wing Republican in the United States who want everything to be in its place and who have backed a President Donald Trump. Even the film jokes about it, given that the real estate company that intends to take advantage of his legal ploys to drive the elderly out of their homes and leave it in the hands of real estate speculation is called Dye and Merika, which coincidentally recalls ‘ Die América ‘ (or ‘ Death to America’ in Spanish). The film also comes to portray that exacerbated hatred (and its resulting aggressive policy) against Latinos in the United States, and particularly with the Mexican community. Marisol, embodied by an omnipresent and omnipotent Mariana Treviño, will gradually unveil and disarm the rigidity of Otto’s character through close treatment, Mexican food and family atmosphere spiced up by two lovely daughters.

However, despite the fact that this Americanization of the Swedish novel is so topical with American political problems, it turns out to be tremendously grotesque in a somewhat rude and grotesque generational clash. Young people using TikTok to record an incident and upload it to the networks, comedy that makes use of young people and their mischievous use of new technologies or a somewhat complicated and dubious approach to transsexual conflict. The plot will build bridges between the two generations, as well as between Americans and Mexicans, but that bitter aftertaste remains to face this problem seen so many times in such a trivial and artificial way, sometimes resulting in a sensation of a music video.

With flashbacks to his past (where the younger version of Tom Hanks is played by his son, Truman Hanks), the film completes a story arc that is as tender as it is predictable, adding another notch to the actor’s stock of lovable and memorable characters. veteran . ‘The worst neighbor in the world’ confides its greatest virtues in a cast in a state of grace and with a lot of alchemy but reproduces well-known dynamics in the field of the most classic dramedy. However, she will warm your heart and make you fall in love (even more) with Tom Hanks and Mariana Treviño.

Note: 6

The best: The brutal tandem Tom Hanks and Mariana Treviño. The problems it brings to the table.

Worse: The somewhat trivial treatment of the generational clash.