Susan, a single mother of two, works as a waitress in a small town. Her son, Henry, is an 11-year-old genius who not only manages the family finances but acts as emotional support for his mother and younger brother. When Henry discovers that the girl next door has a terrible secret, he implores Susan to take matters into her own hands.
Rated 5.0 / 5 from 1 log on Katalog
I don’t like this movie, I like what this movie is. I very much enjoy watching it, and I adore that it exists, but it’s not a good-bad film in the way Gladiator II is. They may both belong to that hallowed category of lovingly made dumpster fires, but they arrived there by very different routes. Reportedly written and rewritten for eighteen years by Gregg Hurwitz, The Book of Henry stands as proof that time does not improve everything. The story, in mercifully brief summary: Henry, an eleven year old genius (Jaeden Martell, the kid from It), decides to murder his neighbour for molesting his young friend. He drafts a meticulous plan—sniper rifles, diagrams, tight schedules—but succumbs to brain cancer before he can execute it. No bother: he leaves his mother (Naomi Watts) a step-by-step manual to finish the job. She follows along dutifully until, seconds from pulling the trigger, she realises perhaps murder isn’t quite the done thing. She confronts the neighbour instead, who conveniently kills himself that very night. Custody of the abused child then falls, through some forged paperwork, to Susan. The plot, as absurd and revolting as it is, is not the point here. Intentionally or not, this film is just a vehicle for the writer’s own views. The structure is so flimsy it collapses under the lightest scrutiny; the supporting characters—especially the women—exist only as props; and the boy Henry serves as the author’s mouthpiece. (It is worth noting here that Henry is such an insufferable little twit that you don’t feel sad when he dies of brain cancer. Somehow, Hurwitz managed to write a character so flat and off-putting that it overrides the instinctive horror of a child dying of terminal cancer.) And that’s the fascinating bit. All art is revealing. Good writers can convincingly inhabit perspectives not their own. Hurwitz cannot. The judgmental tone, the clumsy Christian imagery, the casual misogyny—these are his convictions. He liked his obnoxious little genius. He thought he’d nailed it. He spent twenty years, and he made this. And that’s art, isn’t it? Performance art as directed by the cosmos. I’m all for it.
