A Man Called Otto

In cinemas now

This Hollywood remake of the 2015 Swedish film A Man Called Ove (which was itself an adaptation of a bestselling novel) is a fairly typical redemption story that certainly isn’t a stranger to narrative tropes. Starring an uncharacteristically abrasive Tom Hanks, it tells the story of a widower’s failed attempts to commit suicide and, with each attempt, how he fell in love with his wife. The latter aspect is recounted through flashbacks and is more than a little heavy-handed, as reflected by the unironic use of Kate Bush’s ‘This Woman’s Work’ in one particularly maudlin scene.

Hanks’ cantankerous character is gradually redeemed by his friendly but dim-witted neighbours, who themselves are an impossible bunch to buy into. Only in the most twee of sitcoms do such people exist, meaning A Man Called Otto – for all its good intentions – never really feels like anything more than the sort of perfunctory ‘feelgood’ content that studios routinely trot out.