Director: Morgan Neville
Plot: An exploration of the life, lessons, and legacy of iconic children’s television host,Fred Rogers
Tagline – You Loved a Lot of Films This Year, But Only One Film Loved You Back.
Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Inspiring
Story: Won’t You Be My Neighbour? Starts as we learn the early career of Fred Rogers, how he stepped into TV after feeling like the children aren’t learning or being loved from what is being produced on television, he started with a smaller show before bringing ‘Fred Roger’s Neighbourhood’ where he would bring social issues to children, from death, racial topics and political ones, he would always speak to the children with love.
His career which spanned decades, would always evolve to help the children of America deal with the latest issues, despite the many parodies he received, the rumours about his past that spiralled out of control, he would always remain calm, loving and honest with his methods and theories.
Thoughts on Won’t You Be My Neighbour?
Final Thoughts – When it comes to documentaries it is always important to show an unaware audience about the subject, in England we barely know anything about Mr Rogers, his theories, show and differences he made to the childhood development. What we discover from this documentary is just how he had changed television in a world that was looking to become faster than anything else. We see how he was able to handle things so simply instead of making anything complicated like many people have in the past. We might only see the full positive effects he had on people’s lives, we don’t dive deep enough into the negatives, which are only touched on, which could have been a bigger talking point. Learning about an icon is brilliant to see, which always makes me think, who would be the English version of this? Would we ever be able to have somebody like this again?
Overall: Wonderful Documentary.
