A man called Otto (Tom Hanks)

(Amazon UK link)

A few months ago I read and very much liked the book ‘A man called Ove’, by Fredrik Backman. I already knew that there was a film based on the book, and had put it on my wishlist. I received ‘A man called Otto’ for my birthday, a few months before reading the book. But we hadn’t got around to watching it until last night. 

I was aware that Tom Hanks played the title role in the film. When I read the book, I imagined him in the part, and thought he was perfect for it. I don’t know why the title character’s name was changed from Ove to Otto, but it wasn’t a big deal. And while the book is set in a small town in Sweden, the film is set in a small town in the United States. There are other changes, too, which irritate some fans of the book. But they didn’t worry me. 

The film opens when Otto is trying to buy some rope, arguing with the sales assistant about the cost. It’s a good way to portray his extreme pedantry and precision of outlook. He is a very organised, controlled person who likes to follow the same routine every day. And as I expected, Tom Hanks is wonderful in this role. He is exactly as I had imagined Otto. 

After his purchases, we see him patrolling the grounds of the complex where he lives. He checks that the recycling bins are used correctly (and moves items placed in the wrong ones). And he gets into an angry debate with a delivery van who has - in Otto’s mind - trespassed by driving onto their private road without a permit. 

There are some new neighbours trying to move in. In the book they are a Persian family, but in the film they’re Mexican. But they are similar in outlook - very open-hearted, generous, and expecting everyone to be friendly. The wife, Marisol (Mariana Treviño) loves to bake, and regularly takes things to Otto. She has two children and is heavily pregnant. Her husband Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is kind, a bit naive and not all that bright. 

In the book there are a lot of neighbours - too many for me to keep track of. In the film, the only ones we get to know somewhat are Jimmy, who likes to keep fit; Malcolm, a teenager who first irritates Otto by leaving his bicycle in the wrong place, and an older couple, Anita and Reuben, who used to be close to Otto and his wife. But Reuben has some form of dementia, and Anita isn’t well either. Oh, and there’s also a woman with a dog who clashes regularly with Otto… and there’s a cat who won’t go away. 

The story itself is not one that would normally be thought of as suitable for a light novel or film. Otto does not want to live any longer. He’s recently retired, and as we quite quickly learn in the film, his beloved wife died within the past year. It takes much longer for this to be obvious in the book, which is quite complicated in places with flashbacks. 

The film makes it much clearer - the only flashbacks are the ones in which we learn about Otto’s relationship with Sonia (Rachel Keller). I thought they were very well done, with a younger man in Otto’s role. Truman Hanks is apparently Tom Hanks’ son, which is perhaps why he feels right for this part, despite not looking all that similar. 

During the course of the film, Otto attempts more than once to end his life. It could have been traumatic, but each time something happens - either the attempts fails, or he’s interrupted with something else. He can’t avoid answering doors, or helping people when they’re in trouble. Despite his grumpy, rigid attitudes, he’s altruistic and caring deep down. 

It’s character-based, and inevitably in an hour and a half can’t cover everything from a full-length novel. We don’t see much of Otto’s childhood, for one thing, or how he started work. But I thought that, overall, it was extremely well-done. There’s humour - often in Tom Hanks’ perfect timing of a remark - and light-heartedness in the joy of the Mexican family. There are also some deeper issues touched on: the role of the state in deciding where elderly folk should live, for instance, and how to relate to a transgender person. They’re done sensitively, and leave much to think about.

The pace is just right, the acting excellent, albeit caricatured (deliberately) in some cases. The ending is poignant, and yet there’s no other ending that would have worked. And it leads to positive changes in the lifestyle and expectations of others. 

The rating is 15 in the UK (PG-13 in the United States) which reflects the nature of the film rather than anything specific. There’s nothing remotely sexual, and only mild bad language. There’s some mild gore, but nothing gratuitous, and Otto’s first attempt at taking his life is quite traumatic, so it’s not a film I’d want a child to see, or a sensitive or depressed teenager. Nor would it be appropriate for anyone likely to be negatively triggered by a story about someone who wants to kill himself.

But, with those provisos, we thought it a very good film. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker)

(Amazon UK link)

After the end of Doctor Who series 13 (‘The Flux’) there were three special episodes featuring Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor. I knew that in the final one, ‘The Power of the Doctor’ she would end up regenerating into the 14th Doctor. 

The identity of the 14th Doctor was a well-kept secret before the episode was broadcast in October 2022 as part of the BBC’s centenary celebrations; I knew who was going to be, of course, and was looking forward to seeing him. 

‘The Power of the Doctor’ is longer than usual - almost an hour and a half, the length of a typical film. So it’s not surprising that it was not included in the previous pair of specials, ‘Eve of the Daleks and Legend of the Sea Devils’, which were broadcast earlier that year.

The opening is fast-paced and dramatic. There’s a call for help from a space train, which is being invaded by Cybermen. The Doctor and her companions, Yas (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop) arrive and undertake a risky rescue, one which leaves Dan a bit disturbed as he’s nearly killed. 

Meanwhile a dalek appears in a hologram, claiming to be disillusioned with the daleks and offering to provide the Doctor with some information that will enable her to destroy the daleks forever. She is naturally suspicious but the dalek appears to be genuine.

At the same time as all this, Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), director of UNIT, puts out an emergency call for help. Several seismologists have disappeared, and some famous paintings around the world have been defaced, showing the face of Rasputin.  Except that it isn’t Rasputin…

With such a powerful and dramatic episode, it’s not surprising that the Doctor’s long-term antagonist The Master appears - Sacha Dhawan does this part very well, turning on the charm when he needs to, but with eyes that betray his real intent. He has a crazy ‘plan’ to destroy earth… and appears to be descending into some form of madness. 

The plot is complex and I’m not sure I grasped more than the basic outline, but it’s extremely well done. I wasn’t sure about a female Doctor when she first appeared, but Jodie Whittaker has proved exceptionally good in the role. I’m already looking forward to re-watching her episodes in future, when we re-watch the entire set (the ‘recent’ ones, that is, from 2005 onwards). 

There are lots of bonuses in this episode, including the return of two of the Doctor’s former companions, although I didn’t recall any of them: I didn’t watch the series at all in the 1980s. There are also images of some of the earlier Doctors in a cleverly done scene; I recognised a couple of them and worked out later who the others were. 

The ending is moving, with some personal conversations that run quite deep. I thought it very well done. We were glad to see that there were two ‘extras’ on the DVD, which we watched afterwards. These discussed some of the making of the episode, and also showed some real friendships that had developed over the course of the previous few years. It’s the end of an era for the main characters, but they clearly had a wonderful time making the show. 

By itself this episode would probably be even more confusing than it was to me anyway. But as part of the ongoing series, this is well worth watching and I would recommend it highly. 

You can read more about this episode, and other reviews of 'The Power of the Doctor' here.

 

  Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Eve of the Daleks and Legend of the Sea Devils (Jodie Whittaker)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s quite complicated acquiring a complete set of DVDs of Doctor Who. The main series episodes are on the relevant series DVDs, but there are often ‘specials’ or other episodes that are produced separately. And since we don’t see them when they’re shown on TV, I have to rely on online information to tell me the order, and my Amazon wishlist to add in the ones I need. 

I knew we would finish the six-episode ‘Flux’, series 13 in April, and that there had been some specials with the fourteenth Doctor broadcast in 2023. But I hadn’t realised there were also three other specials featuring the 13th doctor, Jodie Whittaker, prior to that. I added them to my wishlist, and was given them for my recent birthday. So over the last couple of weekends we watched the first of these DVDs, which features the first two 2022 episodes, ‘Eve of the Daleks’ and ‘Legend of the Sea Devils’. 

The first of these episodes was apparently broadcast on New Year’s Eve as a  ‘special’, and is suitably light-hearted despite having those most frightening of aliens, the daleks. It’s rather confusing at first: the opening sequence sees a woman (Aisling Bea) working on her own in a storage facility. She is visited by a man (Adjani Salmon) who apparently only visits on New Year’s Eve, and who deposits some rather strange things - in this case, a monopoly set. 

We then see the Doctor arriving with Yas (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop)… only to have everyone ‘exterminated’ by the daleks. Rather a surprising start to an episode which, as we soon discover, is in a bizarre time loop. It’s cleverly done, and after the first confusion of wondering what was going on, it turns out to be quite an enjoyable episode with, as ever, last-minute escape for all concerned. Since there are only five people (in addition to the daleks) there is, inevitably, some human interest and emotional interactions between some of them.

The second episode is about creatures called sea devils, which I didn’t recall at all but apparently they were part of one of the very early Doctor Who series with Jon Pertwee. They should have been scary but I thought they looked oddly appealing despite their violent nature. I’m not sure I entirely understood all the storyline, which involves a pirate ship, the search for some treasure, and the threat of switching the earth’s axes, but it was very well done. I had to turn away from some rapid sword fights which had too much fast action for me, but, again, there are some good interludes of conversation. 

This DVD had three ‘extras’, one about the dalek episode, and two about the sea devils episode. We always find it interesting watching these background features, which show some of the filming and how it all worked. The sea devils episode had, apparently, the biggest and most complex set anyone could remember for Doctor Who. We learned about how the different characters were engaged in the sword fighting - not an easy thing to pick up - and also where stunt people were used in a few places.

These two episodes were considered part of Series 13 and made excellent extra viewing. We know, of course, that Jodie Whittaker’s time as the Doctor is coming to an end, and that the next DVD will have her regenerating at the end - and since the fourteenth Doctor is going to be the same as my favourite tenth Doctor, I’m looking forward to that, and then seeing the 2023 specials. 

It seems a tad extravagant to have to have two extra DVDs for these three 2022 specials, rather than their being part of the Series 13 box set. But I was very pleased to be given these, which are well worth seeing. Jodie Whittaker is an excellent Doctor, albeit sometimes speaking so fast that I can barely catch what she says. Her portrayal is full of energy and ideas, and has certainly dispelled the myth that the Doctor should always be male. 

  Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Doctor Who: Flux, series 13 (Jodie Whittaker)

(Amazon UK link)

I had the thirteenth series of ‘Doctor Who’ on my wishlist for quite some time, so was very pleased when we were given the DVD set last Christmas.  We were coming to the end of the fourth ‘Father Brown’ series, which we had been watching on DVD, and when we finished that we watched ‘The Revolution of the Daleks’, a Doctor Who special which preceded the thirteenth series, and which had been in our to-be-watched drawer for over a year.

We started watching the thirteenth series - which has the title ‘Flux’ on the box - towards the end of February. There are only six episodes, but I was away for three weeks and we had only seen five of them. We watched the last episode (and the extras on the third DVD) last night. 

What an epic series it has been! Unusually for Doctor Who, the episodes are not complete in themselves, or even two-parters. They are essentially a six-part series, each episode ending with a dramatic cliff-hanger as the story continues. The overall theme is that a huge hurricane of anti-matter, known as The Flux, is sweeping across the entire universe causing devastation and wholesale destruction everywhere it goes.

Inevitably this eventually gets stopped in the final episode; that’s really no surprise. But there are many different subplots all blending together involving almost every enemy race that I could recall from the Doctor Who series. The daleks, the cybermen, the sontarans, the creepy weeping angels… all have their place in what feels like a very confusing but well-made series. 

My favourite parts of Doctor Who are the human interactions that take place, and the more emotional stories. The start of the first episode drew me right in: a young man called Dan (John Bishop) acts as an unofficial guide to parts of Liverpool. He’s clearly a generous person but also in financial straits. Strange things start happening to him and then he’s kidnapped by an alien spaceship…

Inevitably Dan is rescued and it becomes clear that he’s going to travel with the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) for a while, along with Yas (Mandip Gill). He’s a good addition to the team, quick to grasp what is needed, and full of courage as well as having a sense of humour.

Another thread I liked involved two new characters: Vinder (Jacob Anderson) who is in a spacecraft travelling the galaxy alone and making reports, and Bel (Thaddea Graham) who is a talented warrier and navigator. The two are romantically involved but have somehow lost each other, and are both on a quest to reunite. 

There are also quite complex time-travel threads with a woman called Clare (Annabel Scholey) who reappears in different eras, and a professor (Kevin McNally) who finds everything delightfully interesting despite increasing danger. And there’s an interesting connection with real-life history, with Joseph Williamson (Steve Oram) who built tunnels under Liverpool in the nineteenth century. 

Another foray into real history happens in the second episode of the series, and involves Mary Seacole and the Crimean War… except that it’s a war against an entirely different race from that which we have learned about. Sara Powell is wonderful and entirely believable as the courageous Seacole who was a pioneer in medicine around the same time as Florence Nightingale. 

Meanwhile the Doctor has lost some of her memories, and is fighting against not just the familiar enemies but the chilling ‘Ravagers’ who seek to destroy everything. There’s a lot of backstory about the Doctor in this series, and in the earlier ones too, which hasn’t happened so much with earlier incarnations of the Doctor. 

It’s a magnificent series, shorter than planned, apparently, as it was filmed during the pandemic. My husband didn’t seem to have any problem understanding what was going on, but I find fast action and loud noises confusing, and had to read summaries of the episodes after watching to figure out what I had missed. I’m still not sure I grasped more than the overview but with all the human interest stories, I looked forward to watching it each week, and am very glad I did.

We have the subsequent ‘special’ episode to watch over the next few weeks, and in the autumn plan to start over with Series One of the ‘new’ seasons, involving the Ninth Doctor, and re-watch everything again to see if it gradually becomes clearer. 

Definitely recommended if you like Doctor Who. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews