Review of A Man Called Otto, directed by Marc Forster

Because I had an AMC subscription for several years, before I lost my car in a tragic accident and ended up moving to Asia for a year, I saw a ton of movies for cheap. Like for $25, I’m surprised AMC let me in as much as they did. I saw so many movies that they definitely lost some money here.

Anyways, I remember when A Man Called Otto hit theaters. Did I watch it then? No. I was in a bit of a funk at the time and kept telling myself that I was only going to see movies that I was genuinely passionate about, which, in hindsight, put me into more of a funk. I needed to get out more.

So I didn’t watch this movie for a hot minute after it had already hit theaters. I saw on one random Wednesday, as I sat at home and debated what to do, that this had been added to Netflix after I opened it up during my deliberations. And despite having no interest in watching it before, I pressed play.

That, my friends, was how I ended up finally watching this movie all the way straight through.

Here’s my review.

Otto, a cranky old man grieving his dead wife, learns to be more human again with his neighbors.

Our main character in this movie is Otto, an older gentleman who has been living on the block since way back when, before it was even developed the way it is. In his free time, he likes to yell at people who park in the wrong spaces, and generally has an attitude that puts people off.

Turns out his wife, Sonya, died six months ago, and Otto just doesn’t know how to live without her. His entire personality has changed since her death.

At the beginning of the movie, he’s finally retiring from his work, but it’s also kind of a forced retirement. They reluctantly throw him a party, which he then gets snarky about and leaves. They cut the cake without him in celebration of him leaving, and Otto begins making the plans to kill himself and move on to the next life.

However, just as he prepares the rope to end it all, a group of new neighbors arrive. Marisol and her husband Tommy, and their two daughters, are moving in. After Otto’s rope breaks the ceiling and he crumbles to the floor, still alive, he goes outside and lectures them about how to back the car up properly.

He then goes to visit Sonya’s grave, and he remembers about how they met on a train. He’s kept a quarter she gave hi in that moment after all of those years, and, later in the movie, it sparks something else. Otto goes to help another neighbor, Anita, not really looking at her husband Reuben, who has been taken down by a stroke.

Attempt number two at ending his life right after that fails, as Tommy breaks his leg and Marisol comes looking for Otto to help them out. He drives the family to the hospital, and a clown takes his quarter. Otto then assaults the clown, causing an incident.

Attempt number three is at a train station, where Otto recalls how he asked Sonya to marry him all those years ago. As he reflects, another man falls onto the tracks, and he saves the guy, being pulled up himself before the train arrives. He then finds himself with a cat after his neighbor finds it, and befriends a trans teenager who Sonya taught and loved.

After all of this, Otto teaches Marisol to drive. We learn Anita and Sonya were friends, but Reuben and he had a lot of friction throughout the years over pretty dumb things. Otto’s connections to the other neighbors grow deeper from here, and we learn a subplot that a real estate company is trying to get ahold of the neighborhood.

Otto tries again to end his life, but the teenager arrives at his door, asking to stay the night because his father kicked him out. Soon after that, Otto discovers Anita and Reuben’s son is in cahoots with the real estate guys, and with the help of the social media journalist who filmed Otto at the train station, they take down the bad guys.

Right after, though, Otto collapses. His heart problem has worsened, and Marisol gives birth. Otto changes from this point on, but we skip to the final scenes: Otto has not shoveled his snow one day.

Marisol and Tommy head into his house, where they find him dead. His heart failed, and he left everything to their family. The film ends with the neighbors gathering for a funeral.

Overall Thoughts

While I do think this movie was sweet and good natured in many ways, I think it had too much crammed into it at once. Like I love the trans student subplot, but it, along with the social media journalist, but they feel like extras that are already too much in this movie.

I get that had to add in a more youth focused perspective, showing the collective of a neighborhood, but it just came across as too forced to me. Lowkey the entire real estate subplot also felt that way at times too.

I did enjoy the movie though, and see its merits! It just fully wasn’t for me.

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