Last year’s documentary, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” (which landed at #1 on my Press list of best movies of 2018) does an excellent job of highlighting the life and impact of the beloved TV host. “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” directed by Marielle Heller (last year’s “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”) and featuring Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers, is more of an emotional companion piece to the documentary. It’s a story of how Fred Rogers impacted one particular family and how that relationship is representative of his overall legacy.

The film is loosely inspired by a 1998 profile piece by Tom Junod in Esquire Magazine, and screenwriters Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster weave real-life anecdotes and elements from the article into a story about a journalist named Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) tasked with interviewing Mister Rogers. With some elements fictionalized, “Neighborhood” opens up as a more explorative piece on how Rogers’ perceptive demeanor impacted the people around him.

Heller takes a big creative swing in the opening scene, which seemingly begins as a normal episode of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and Hanks as Rogers addressing the audience directly. The lesson of the day just happens to be about Fred’s troubled friend Lloyd, first seen looking bruised and bloodied in a photograph on a poster board full of Rogers’ TV neighbors. The movie then abandons Hanks for a solid 20 minutes, introducing Lloyd and the fractured relationship with his long-estranged father (Chris Cooper, always good at playing flawed/absent dads), and the events that led to Lloyd’s bloodied appearance.

The movie eventually connects the two characters, and Lloyd questions Mister Rogers’ sincerity in the early stages of their interview sessions. Rogers doesn’t make the process easier. When he isn’t talking through his puppet, Daniel Tiger, he ignores the questions entirely and instead prods Lloyd to reveal more about his personal life.

Although maybe not the best Fred Rogers impressionist, Hanks embodies the TV host in full spirit, utilizing his own Hollywood Good Guy reputation to portray Rogers as the person so many of us remember watching as children. His soulful, penetrating eyes pierce through the screen and his voice is a calm and comforting warm blanket.

More than simply channeling the spiritual essence of Mister Rogers though, Hanks makes him human, or at least more so than merely watching clips of the real man. His Rogers is affectionate, yes, but also imperfect and delicate. Some of the best moments of the film feature Hanks reflecting in silence, either to a pointed interview question or when watching the playback of one of his own takes on the TV show. It’s a wonderful performance, maybe one of the best in his impressive career, because Hanks manages to dramatize a perspective on Rogers that was, at least publicly, unknowable.

The real magic trick of “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is how Heller and the screenwriters have made the film a compelling story about Lloyd, and the film finds compelling ways to tell its father-son story without resorting to the well-worn tropes of that particular sub-genre. It discovers these new insights through the prism of Mister Rogers, notably his perspective on anger and forgiveness. In one particularly inspired sequence, Lloyd’s emotional turmoil literally plays out alongside a few famous puppets on the set of “Mister Rogers Neighborhood.”

Rhys does excellent work serving as the true protagonist and anchor of the film. His story, though not explicitly based on real life, feels genuine, as does the relationship he reluctantly forms with Mister Rogers.

With the documentary out just last year, it’s nice that “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” forges its own dramatic path even as it echoes similar thematic territory.

They do share at least one essential element: Both movies will help you see the world through the eyes of Mister Rogers, and that’s truly a wonderful place to spend some time.

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Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com. He is the co-host of Old Millennials Remember Movies, available everywhere you find podcasts and at OldMillennialsRemember.com