The Book of Henry
Director: Colin Trevorrow
Talent: Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher, Jacob Tremblay, Sarah Silverman
Released: 23rd June
Henry Carpenter (Lieberher) is a gifted 11-year old boy living in picturesque small-town America. He spends his days surrounded by the red-and-gold foliage of the forest near his house, building delightful contraptions in his artful wooden shed, like some lovechild of Henry Thoreau and Willy Wonka. At school he wows teachers with emotional insight and scholarly knowledge while trying to keep his adorable younger brother safe from bullies. At night he takes care of the family’s finances (this boy-genius plays the stock market), watched by a warm and idiosyncratic single mother (Watts), who plays video-games before she sings the boys lullabies to sleep.
Life continues in this vein – until it doesn’t. Tragedy strikes the family, prompting into action the mother and younger brother who must now, guided only by the written words of Henry, save their adolescent neighbor from the clutches of her villainous step-father.
In brief, this film is a spectacular failure. I cannot think of another film that is so catastrophically torn in two directions, thematically. If this film were a person, medical health professionals from all over the globe would be marveling at the unrivalled magnitude of its split-personality.
The tone of the film is apple-pie: familial love, personal growth, good triumphing over evil. These are the values the film wishes to impart. And yet the plot reads like the script for an 18+, jet-black cult comedy. Children die, get raped, incite murder. The adults drink a lot: the mother’s best friend is an alcoholic. A suicide caps off the story.
Jaeden Lieberher succeeds in his role as an unusually precocious child, and Naomi Watts is, as always, a beguiling screen presence. But nothing can change the sheer lunacy of this plot from exploding the film into meaninglessness. Watch at your peril.
Words – Tom Lordan
