Is ‘A Man Called Otto’ Based on a True Story? How Swedish Author Fredrik Backman Came Up With His Character

A Man Called Otto is now streaming on Netflix, which means that Netflix subscribers can now stream the movie where Tom Hanks is mean for free, from the comfort of their own homes.

The notoriously kindly Hanks plays against type as “the grumpiest man in the world” in this 2022 dark comedy, which was adapted from the 2012 Swedish novel A Man Called Ove (which also adapted as a Swedish film in 2015). Directed by Marc Forster, with a screenplay by David Magee, Hanks stars as a 63-year-old widower named Otto who hates pretty much everyone besides his pet cat. But it’s more than just being grumpy—Otto is severely depressed, and at the begin of the movie, plans to take his own life. If only his clueless neighbors would stop interrupting!

Also starring Mariana Treviño, Rachel Keller, and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, A Man Called Otto is ultimately a feel-good movie in the end. And, as many savvy movie-watchers know, it’s often the case that feel-good movies like this are based on a true story. So is A Man Called Otto based on a true story? Read on to find out.

Is A Man Called Otto based on a true story?

Sort of… but not really. A Man Called Otto is an American remake of the 2015 Swedish film, A Man Called Ove, which in turn is an adaptation of the 2012 novel of the same name by author Fredrik Backman. Backman’s novel is fictional, and not based on a true story. That said, Backman was inspired to write his novel by a real-life Swedish curmudgeon named Ove. But other than the man’s name and his grumpy disposition, everything Backman imagined for A Man Called Ove was entirely made up.

According to a New York Times interview with Backman from 2016, Backman was once a freelance writer for the Swedish magazine Cafe. One of his fellow writers at the magazine wrote a blog post after witnessing a man named Ove have a public, angry meltdown while purchasing tickets for an art museum until his wife de-escalated the situation. Inspired by this story, Backman created a curmudgeonly character named “Ove,” and began to write blog posts about his pet peeves and annoyances, and called the column, “I Am a Man Called Ove.” (This was how journalism worked in the 2000s.)

The more posts Backman wrote, the more he realized he had created a fully-fledged character, with the potential for a complete novel. “There’s a lot of me in him,” Backman said of his character, Ove. “When we get angry, it’s about a principle, and we get angry because people don’t understand why we’re angry.”

But again, Ove’s dead wife, his plan to take his own life, and all of his intervening neighbors are entirely made up for the purpose of the story. The same holds true for the American version of the story: A Man Called Otto is not based on a true story, and Tom Hanks’ character is not based on a real person. It’s a total fabrication, invented by a writer.