A Man Called Otto review — Tom Hanks pushes the right emotional buttons

★★★☆☆
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. Otto has a touch of Jack Nicholson in As Good as it Gets and, as in that film, there is a better man lurking beneath the growls and frowns. It takes a while to show itself because the widower is sunk in grief. Yet his attempts to kill himself are repeatedly foiled, often by the chaotic and compassionate Latino family who live opposite.

Marc “Monster’s Ball” Forster’s film, based on the Swedish bestseller A Man Called Ove and a Swedish film of the same name, is nothing we haven’t seen before. Hanks is always watchable, though, while the script pushes the right emotional buttons and the actor playing the young Otto is the spit of Hanks (it’s his son, Truman).
15, 126min
In cinemas