A Man Called Otto (2022) review

Or, Suicide, Interrupted.  Recent retiree (and widower) Otto (Tom Hanks) misses his wife terribly and simply cannot wait to hang himself but keeps getting pestered by new neighbors (and a cat) so he has to put off plans to die and help them with a variety of errands ... and eventually he learns to 'stick the course' until nature has its way with him.  This wannabe tearjerker is syrupy and gratuitous: there are too many flashbacks - to when younger Otto (played by Tom's real-life son Truman) meets his soulmate Sonya (Rachel Keller) - and the "coincidental" moments prevent it from being semi-realistic, plus Hanks is too inherently paternal and wise to pull off the crankiness.  Screenwriter David Magee adapted it from a novel by Swedish author Fredrik Backman (and the film by director Hannes Holm), but it can't stopping hitting false notes ... and, keeping with the times, Otto takes in a homeless transgender kid named Malcolm (Mack Bayda).  But the "message" was better summed up in a poem by Dorothy Parker: Razors pain you / Rivers are damp....