Editor's Note: The following contains references to suicide.
Though the posters and TV spots for A Man Called Otto may make it look like just another Tom Hanks star vehicle or the latest in a long line of tearjerker dramas about cantankerous old men learning to appreciate life, there’s a much more complicated history behind this movie. A Man Called Otto began life as A Man Called Ove, a Swedish novel by Fredrik Backman published in 2012 that was later adapted into a 2015 film of the same name directed by Hannes Holm. To put it simply, this story has gone through a lot of different incarnations in just over a decade.
Having not read the original Ove book, I cannot offer any commentary on how the text differs from this American film adaptation. But having seen the A Man Called Ove film, I’m much more qualified to explore the differences between the two film adaptations of Backman’s work. The general narratives of both features remain the same while Otto retains a surprisingly sizeable portion of its predecessor’s darker material (namely all those on-screen suicide attempts) rather than diluting the source material for North American sensibilities. But within those narratives exists a sizable number of differences that reflect a lot of underlying creative ambitions of Otto.
Differences Between 'A Man Called Otto' & 'A Man Called Ove'
The fundamental differences between A Man Called Ove and A Man Called Otto are apparent from the start. In Otto, the characters speak English and live in America rather than talk in Swedish and reside in Sweden. These surface-level adjustments are why the character of Ove is now called Otto (Tom Hanks) in the American remake. The variations between the two adaptations are also instantly noticeable due to their respective opening scenes. Both films do begin with their titular protagonists trying to purchase something and getting into a confrontation with the cashier. However, Ove opens with its lead trying to buy flowers for his deceased wife’s grave while Otto hits the ground running by showing Otto attempting to buy rope for a noose he’ll use to hang himself.
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While both scenes accomplish one specific goal (to demonstrate that Otto is crusty and bound to pick a fight with anyone), they choose to reveal different facets of the character in introducing him to audiences. Ove chooses to immediately make it apparent that heartbreak is driving this man’s life. He may be a nightmare to talk to, but he can show affection toward others. Meanwhile, Otto keeps viewers a bit more in the dark about what’s going on with its lead character. We know he wants to commit suicide (why else would he attempt to tie a knot in the store?) but not the reasons why. There’s more of a mystery surrounding Otto compared to Ove.
Both Adaptations Use Flashbacks in Different Ways
The story of A Man Called Ove hinges heavily on flashbacks. Each time Ove attempts suicide, the camera cuts to visions of his past to replicate the sensation that Ove is seeing his life flash before his eyes. These flashbacks in Ove encompass the whole span of his life, from his childhood growing up with a single father to his initial flirtations with the woman that would become his life to the events that carved a bitter shell around his soul.
A Man Called Otto preserves the presence of flashbacks and primarily utilizes them during moments when it looks like Otto is about to end it all. However, they’ve now been compressed heavily. Otto’s father only appears briefly in his flashbacks, instilling in the boy his lifelong love for Chevy automobiles. We do not see Otto’s dad get hit by a train and die just after his son hit a massive education milestone, as we did in A Man Called Ove, with Otto only off-handedly mentioning in one of the flashbacks that his father recently passed away. Other key events from Ove’s past, such as his neighbor’s house catching fire and leading to the destruction of his childhood home, are also gone.
Instead, the focus of the flashbacks (beyond a quick montage of Otto's childhood) begins when Otto meets Sonya (Rachel Keller), the woman who would become his wife. While their meeting in A Man Called Ove is by chance (a homeless Ove stows away on a train to get some rest and awakens sitting across from a beautiful lady), here, Otto sees Sonya drop a book and then rushes to return it to her. This establishes that the flashbacks in Otto are almost exclusively focused on the relationship between Sonya and Otto. In another contrast to Ove, A Man Called Otto often has the older present-day version of Otto briefly appear in these flashback sequences. There was a great dividing line between the past and present in the Ove flashbacks, whereas Otto blurs the lines a bit more to indicate how consumed Otto is by memories of yesteryear.
These alterations mostly seem to be done to adjust to the expectations of mainstream American moviegoers. The flashbacks in A Man Called Ove go on for a lengthy period of time and intentionally convey the idea that they hail from an entirely different movie. General audiences might have far less patience for extended digressions like this, so the flashbacks in Otto have been compressed for time and created more apparent connections between the two periods in Otto’s life. It may be a concession for broad accessibility, but the interesting visual cues used to incorporate older Otto into his memories of the past work well enough to make this a decently realized alteration
'A Man Called Otto' Offers New Takes on Familiar Characters
In the present-day segments, much of Otto’s life is very similar to the existence of Ove. He’s still got neighbors like a lady and her tiny dog or an exuberant jogger to deal with. A new family moving in keeps delaying his plans to end his life. Even his former pal Reuben, who has been paralyzed, is maintained. However, specific details in many of these neighbors have been changed. For starters, in both iterations of this story, that new family hails from a different culture than Otto’s, forcing him to open his horizons and mind. In Ove, though, that family is led by Iranian immigrant Parvaneh (Bahar Pars), whereas in Otto, the most prominent member of the family is mother Marisol (Mariana Treviño). The personalities of both women are largely the same (boisterous, witty, able to handle Ove/Otto in any conversation), but their respective countries of origin reflect varying immigrant populations considered extremely prominent in either Sweden or America.
An especially interesting character change comes in how A Man Called Otto translates the two characters Adrian (Simon Edenroth) and Mirsad (Poyan Karimi). In A Man Called Ove, Adrian is a twenty-something who wants to fix a bike that Ove initially dismisses as just being a troublemaking youngster. However, Ove later learns that Adrian wants to fix the bike for his girlfriend and that this kid is working multiple jobs. While visiting him at an eatery he works for, Ove encounters Mirsad, Adrian’s co-worker and a gay man. Later on, Mirsad is thrown out of his house by his hom*ophobic father, and Ove, initially reluctantly, lets him stay over for a while.
In A Man Called Otto, these two characters are consolidated into Malcolm (Mack Bayda). He's also a twenty-something male with a bike that Otto originally underestimates. However, in this version, Malcolm, unlike Adrian, is trans, which has him filling in the role of a younger queer character in the narrative. Malcolm continues to function like Mirsad later on in the story once his dad kicks him out of his house for being trans and Otto allows this guy to stay over. Like Mirsad, Malcolm makes breakfast for Otto the next morning and joins this cranky man on his morning errands. The details of Adrian and Mirsad are still alive and well in A Man Called Otto, but they’ve just been shifted into one new character.
The present-day sequences also contain variations in the form of Otto clinging more tightly to physical reminders of his deceased spouse compared to Ove (though this could be present in the book). Coats that used to be long to Sonya are spilling out of a coat rack right next to Otto’s staircase while this man clings to a quarter that he connects to fond memories of Sonya. The latter element informs Otto’s interpretation of a memorable sequence from A Man Called Ove concerning this elderly guy getting into a skirmish with a clown.
In the original film, their conflict solely stemmed from Ove’s cantankerous behavior and his inability to be patient with people. In A Man Called Otto, this physical altercation occurs because Beppo the Clown (amusingly, one of the few characters in this American movie to retain his Swedish name) uses Otto’s quarter for a magic trick and doesn’t instantly return it afterward. It’s another way A Man Called Otto is deviating from the original film adaptation of this novel to demonstrate how the past is adversely impacting Otto’s present-day world.
What Do 'A Man Called Otto's Changes Signify?
The final act of A Man Called Otto is largely the same as A Man Called Ove, with only minor differences occurring here. In both versions, the film’s lead character and all the neighborhood inhabitants swoop in to ensure that Rune/Reuben is not taken away from his home. However, in A Man Called Otto, a real estate developer is the antagonist tasked with retrieving Rune/Reuben. Meanwhile, the film’s endings are almost exactly the same, but the final shots do differ. A Man Called Ove closes with the residents of Ove’s neighborhood returning home and the camera panning upward, with the emphasis here being on all the people Ove touched in his life. A Man Called Otto, meanwhile, closes out on a shot of Otto’s tombstone, showing him buried next to his wife while little trinkets around the grave suggest that Marisol and her kids visit the site regularly.
The changes to A Man Called Otto compared to the original A Man Called Ove film are occasionally amusing (a newspaper journalist in the initial movie becomes “a social media journalist” in Otto…whatever that means) but most seem to have been made out of practicality. The number of characters in the story has been consolidated while the scope of the flashbacks has also been shrunk down. These changes also demonstrate a welcome willingness on the part of A Man Called Otto to deliver something different that you couldn’t just get from rewatching A Man Called Ove at home.
Which movie is better? It’s hard to say. A Man Called Ove and A Man Called Otto have such different sensibilities as pieces of filmmaking that it can feel a bit like comparing apples and oranges trying to parse out which one is the superior take on the life of this curmudgeon. The willingness to go subtle in displaying internalized torment in Ove likely gives that film the edge, but the unique traits in Otto’s interpretation of this story make it clear that this is no shameless carbon copy of what’s worked in the past.
