The Book of Henry Review
A lot of people who have seen this have sat down to watch what Colin Trevorrow would bring to his smaller scale production before he takes on the giant that will be Star Wars: Episode IX, and while sure I’m curious to see more of his work before then and I really had a blast with Jurassic World (2015), the ads are what drew me into the film, not necessarily the filmmaker. Well, the result is one of the more weird and off-beat films that’s aiming for the main film market that I can only give so many details about, because there’s a lot of spoilery territory to walk around, so I’ll do my best.
The film features Henry, a boy of 11 who is extremely gifted when it comes to speaking, mathematics, and reasoning. He also knows his sciences, the stock market, mortgage payments, and is a father figure to his younger brother, Peter. While he takes care of the financials for his mom, too, he’s also a kid who has a crush on his next-door neighbor. The trouble starts when he realizes that her step-father is abusing her, and after all of his attempts to bring an end to the violence, he decides that going full R-rated Home Alone (1990) style and killing the step-father is the best way to go. After doing his research, the only trouble Henry faces is getting his mother to help him do the unthinkable to help the unprotected.
I’ll start this section of the review where I give the positives with this: most of the performances are excellent. Naomi Watts is a very talented actress who can turn it on whenever she wants, and she turns in a pitch-perfect performance for what this movie is asking from her. She’s strong when she needs to be, vulnerable when she’s not strong, and reliant on Henry when the plot needs her to in order to continue the story. Also good is Jaeden Lieberher as Henry, who also had a nice performance as a youngster in St. Vincent (2014), funny enough alongside Naomi Watts, whose performance and character I did not enjoy in that film, but they’re dynamic here makes for a very entertaining film. The next thing I’ll credit, funny enough, is the last twenty minutes. While the quality of the cinematography, art direction, score and editing are fine for the first 80% of the film, the last twenty minutes really wracks up the tension as the final steps are made to try and get the step-father out of the picture. In particular the editing really was well done and especially with the audience I was with, if anybody was bored that last twenty minutes brought them back in. The final thing I’ll mention here, and it’s what saves the movie for me, is the realization I came across not long before the last twenty minutes: Trevorrow, basically, is paying homage to the type of films made by an historical Hollywood figure: Alfred Hitchcock. If you’ve seen the movie and are lost by that last statement, put everything together: the icy blonde heroine, played by Watts, check; the murder aspects with trying to kill the step-father, check; dark comedy surrounding everybody treating the killing of him as nothing special, check; and the biggest check mark of all is the mother of all spoilers, but I’ll say it links back to one of his 60’s classics. Those who have seen the film know what I’m talking about.
Here’s the thing about the weaker elements of the film: the first half of the film is this light comedy film about Henry and his smarts, and the second half of the film, where the whole murder plot picks up, is a totally different animal in mood and feel, and the transition is rough to put it lightly. I really felt like the brakes were slammed on with the feel and mood of that first half, and now all of a sudden we’re in a totally different movie. Multiple times I felt myself saying out loud, “What movie am I watching?” Also, while the neighbor girl that Henry has a crush on is far from a character to root against, I didn’t feel like she had enough character development or screen-time to justify my being invested in an 11 year-old plotting to kill an adult. She was fine and everything, but I didn’t feel that involved with her as a character. Speaking of underdevelopment, the same goes for the step-father character. The film doesn’t even give him a chance to being anything but a stereotype. All he is is the bad neighbor who yells at the other neighbors for not keeping their yards clean and I felt like if I’m going to root against him enough to side with the “heroes” of the story and root for them to kill him, he needed more development and I needed more hatred to get to that point. One last thing, Sarah Silverman plays a character who’s best friends with Naomi Watt’s character, but she adds absolutely nothing to the plot. She’s not involved with trying to kill the step-father and only criticizes Henry for being smarter than her. Really, all she does in the movie is have a few meaningless conversations with Watts, then goes and drinks. She felt like padding. The time spent on her could have been spent on making us really like the neighbor girl and hate her step-father, but nope, let’s give it up for Silverman and her drinking.
So yeah, I’m kind of torn on this one, but while there are a lot of things that will stick in my memory about this that will make me remember the film in a less than positive light, I think the performances overcome those flaws enough for me to say that it’s worth seeing. There’s also the nods to Hitchcock which, if you’ve seen the film, maybe you didn’t pick up on, and you might want to re-watch to find them. I don’t know, I haven’t heard anybody else say that, so I might be crazy, but you know what, so is this movie, so that might be a match made in heaven. Even if you’re not a fan of the subject matter here, you have to commend Trevorrow for his singular vision and thinking outside the box on many ideas in the film.
My rating: 6/10.
