‘Book of Henry’ is irresistibly confounding

The best films are the ones that require some active, alert viewing. They depend upon a degree of audience interpretation and provide a minimum of predigested pablum. They are dense, vibrant and they keep us off balance until the final fade out. Ideally even longer.

I don’t want to oversell the virtues of that approach in “The Book of Henry,” a movie that I found irresistible precisely because it is so confounding.

I won’t describe the action of the film in detail because the less known, the better. Without wandering into spoiler territory, a few things can be noted.

It is set in a small East Coast town that looks as safe and bucolic as any Norman Rockwell community. Naomi Watts leads the cast as Susan, a single mother raising two boys.

Her first, 10-ish Henry (Jaeden Lieberher, outstanding in “Midnight Special” and “St. Vincent”), isn’t simply precocious; he’s the textbook definition of genius.

His mother keeps him in a standard school rather than a gifted kids’ academy to help him develop the skills he’d need to grow up as a healthy, socially oriented, productive adult.

And it works: He’s smart without ever being a smart-

I don’t want to oversell the virtues of that approach in ‘The Book of Henry,’ a movie that I found irresistible precisely because it is so confounding.

ass. His little brother, Peter (Jacob Tremblay, exceptional in “Room”), is still developing, but seems more like a standard-issue great child.