A Man Called Otto [2022] [PG-13] - 1.5.5 | Parents' Guide & Review | Kids-In-Mind.com (2024)

Why is “A Man Called Otto” rated PG-13? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “mature thematic material involving suicide attempts, and language.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a few kissing scenes, several attempted suicides, a train accident, a bus crash that causes a woman to lose her unborn child and become paralyzed, a death by cancer, a death by heart failure, discussions of illness, a discussion of greedy real estate practices, many arguments, and at least 1 F-word and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

A grumpy man (Tom Hanks) is anxious to end his life after his wife (Rachel Keller) dies, feeling there is no reason to go on until a new neighbor convinces him otherwise. Also with Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Kailey Hyman, Mariana Treviño, Cameron Britton, Mike Birbiglia, Peter Lawson Jones, Juanita Jennings, Alessandra Perez and Christiana Montoya. Directed by Marc Forster. Several lines of dialogue are spoken in Spanish with and without translation. [Running Time: 2:06]

A Man Called Otto SEX/NUDITY 1

– A man has several flashbacks to meeting his wife and their life together: she asks him to dinner, she kisses him in a restaurant, he proposes to her and she accepts, and they prepare for the arrival of their child. A man remembers sleeping in bed next to his wife and holding her hand.
►A man and a woman kiss. A wife caresses her husband’s face.
►A man tells a woman to tell her boyfriend to stop stretching his groin in public. A man wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts sits in a chair planning to commit suicide (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A woman wears a nightgown that reveals cleavage and bare shoulders. A woman’s low-cut top reveals cleavage.

A Man Called Otto VIOLENCE/GORE 5

– A man stands on a table, puts a noose around his neck and kicks the table to the side; he twitches and gasps until the ring holding the noose pulls out of the ceiling and he falls to the floor. A man stands on a train platform and seems unstable, he stumbles and falls off, landing hard on the tracks as a train approaches (we see him with a bloody abrasion on his head); many onlookers film the situation on their phones and one man jumps down to help him up, yelling for someone to help, and the injured man is pulled up to the platform, while the man that jumped down to help, remains on the tracks waiting for the train to hit him; a third man yells for him to take his hand and he does just as the train passes. A bus crashes and rolls throwing a man that was in the restroom around; he climbs out of the overturned bus and searches for his wife calling her name and we see debris and injured people; we then see her in the hospital and it is clear that she has lost the child she was carrying and we learn that she was paralyzed from her injuries. A man sits in a room draped with plastic sheeting and holds a gun to his chin; someone knocks on the door and the man is startled and shoots the gun into the ceiling. A man prepares for several methods of committing suicide: he drills into his ceiling and hangs a noose above a table and newspapers spread on the rug under it, he sits in his car with the motor running and a garden hose fills the inside of the car with gas fumes, he stands near the edge of a train platform as a train speeds toward him, and he loads and holds a shotgun under his chin in a room covered with plastic tarps.
►A man lies slumped over on a bed and we understand that he is dead. A man stands on a ladder and tells his wife he feels a bit dizzy; we later hear that the man fell and we see him on crutches leaving the hospital. A man yells and breathes heavily in a few scenes. We hear a man’s heart beating louder in a few scenes. A man has a heart episode and collapses on the ground; a woman runs to his side and we see him in the hospital and the woman goes into labor.
►A man angrily gets out of a car where he is teaching a woman how to drive, he yells at the driver of a car behind them that has been honking at them, pulls the driver out of the car and threatens him. A man lunges at another man and shoves him during a meeting. A man in a wheelchair grabs onto a garden hose as another man carries it away and the second man slaps his hand to make him let go. A man yells at a woman to get her driver’s license and during a driving lesson, and the woman nearly crashes into a car in front of her at a stop light. A man yells at a clown after he is not given back the coin he gave him for a trick; he reaches for the clown’s pocket and it tears and we later see the man outside as two police officers question him. A man is confronted by several people about coming to move a man out of his home to a care facility against his will.
►A man argues with staff at a store when he is charged for more rope than he purchased; the man is very dismissive to a young woman that is identified as the assistant manager for being very young. A man yells at a woman walking her dog and accuses her of not cleaning up after the dog; they argue in a few more scenes and he calls her names. A man yells at a teen boy when he finds his bicycle propped against a wall instead of in the bike rack; he threatens to lock it up in lost-and-found if he finds it there again. A man rolls his eyes when another man waves at him from across the street. A man yells at a UPS delivery person for driving on a private road and says, “Why is it always you brown guys? I don’t mean that racially.” A man is upset when people at his work throw him a retirement party and he walks out in a huff. A man yells at another man in several scenes about the man driving around a closed gate at the entrance to the property and tearing up the lawn. A woman knocks on a car door startling a man inside and he asks, “Are you trying to scare me to death?” A man reprimands a teen boy about delivering flyers to a property. A woman gets out of a car after a driving lesson and the car rolls forward; a man yells at her to put the car in park. A teen boy talks about his father throwing him out of the house because he’s transgender. After a woman nearly rear-ends another car, a man in the car with her says, “It’s OK, it’s a hybrid.” Two men argue about car brands (one likes Fords and the other likes Chevys). Two young girls play fight with action figures of wrestlers in several scenes. A man pretends to be a bear while reading a story and speaks with a low grumbling voice. A man yells at a woman and says, “Stop talking.”
►A man remembers being told that his heart condition would keep him from serving in the military. When a man unsuccessfully tries to park a car with a trailer, another man becomes upset and gets into the car to park it; there are two young girls in the backseat and they speak to each other briefly. A man sits in a wheelchair motionless in several scenes and people talk about his wife having Parkinson’s and being unable to care for him. A man visits his wife’s grave in several scenes and talks about what has been going on. A man talks about his father dying suddenly. We hear that a woman died from cancer.
►A cat lies motionless covered with snow and ice and a woman screams for someone to help it; a man takes the cat home and we see it has recovered but the man has broken out in a rash from being allergic to cats. A woman throws rocks at a stray cat and a man tells her to stop; she says that the cat scratched her dog and the man calls the woman names and threatens to throw rocks at her. A man threatens to “drop-kick” a dog over a roof. A stray cat hides under a man’s car and when the man tries to shoo it away with his foot, the cat clings to his pant leg and slides around on the floor. A man tries to shoo away a stray cat. A man grumbles when he sees what he thinks is urine on the ground and he smells a paper towel when he wipes it up. A man grumbles when he sees that recycling has been mis-sorted in community bins. A man talks about a development company clear-cutting in order to build new condominiums. An infant flatulates and his father holds him away from him with a concerned facial expression.

A Man Called Otto LANGUAGE 5

– About 1 F-word, 10 scatological terms, 12 mild obscenities, name-calling (grumpy old bastard, nasty bitter old man, robot, idiots, unfriendly, nitwit, poor guy, ricky ticky condos, prying bastard, hotheads, useless, silly, old man, freak, stupid cat, nasty cat), exclamations (geez, yeah, oh geez, shut-up, calm down dude, oh my gosh, oh no, wow, yes exactly, uh-huh, ugh, mind their own business), 2 religious profanities (GD), 15 religious exclamations (e.g. for God’s sake, my God, oh my God, oh God). | profanity glossary |

A Man Called Otto SUBSTANCE USE

– A man gives another man a bottle of whiskey but then takes it back.

A Man Called Otto DISCUSSION TOPICS

– Death of loved ones, attempted suicide, military service, congenital heart issues, retirement, acceptance of transgender people, company mergers, redundancy, commitment, accessibility, cancer, drifting apart, real estate development.

A Man Called Otto MESSAGE

– Trying to live without other people leads to a very sad existence.

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