Warm family portrait takes scary turn
“The Book of Henry” has its ups and downs, but at its best is an absorbing and unusual blend of tearjerker and thriller. The story is bolstered by an appealing, quirky portrait of a single mother’s loving relationship with her two young sons, one of whom is a genius.
(It’s also an especially difficult film to discuss without spoilers. I’ll do my best.)
The titular Henry (Jaeden Lieberher) is a supersmart 11-year-old who is organized and capable enough to take care of the family finances. He’s also pretty good at playing the stock market. To a degree, Henry has taken over the role of the dad, who is not only missing from the scene, he’s unmentioned. This leaves the mom, Susan (Naomi Watts), a waitress, free to indulge herself in violent video games, further testament to the role reversal taking place in this 21st century family.
Henry is also a protector of his younger brother, Peter (Jacob Tremblay), a magnet for bullies at their school. Susan clearly likes to take a drink or two or three — often in the company of her best buddy, a fellow waitress (Sarah Silverman) — but she adores her boys, and the warmth of their mutual feelings is made clear.
A disquieting note is the presence of a gruff next-door neighbor (Dean Norris), whose stepdaughter (Maddie Ziegler) is a pleasant but unusually quiet girl, who is nevertheless doted on by Susan, who wouldn’t mind seeing her married someday to Henry. But the boy senses something badly awry — he studies up on signs of sexual abuse, and thinks he sees them in the house next door. His attempts to proceed through official channels (his school’s principal) go nowhere.
Suffice it to say that Susan comes to share her son’s suspicions, and undertakes the boy’s elaborate plan to solve the problem through extralegal means. At this point, the movie takes a giant step back from plausibility, and I’m afraid some viewers will be unwilling to go along. There’s certainly an element of wishfulfillment involved; no doubt there are those in the audience who will understand the characters’ desire for justice at any cost.
There’s a major, sentimental incident in the middle of the story that is intended, I think, to explain Susan’s later behavior, but it’s still borderline lachrymose, and the tone doesn’t serve the movie well. I was also distressed about a seemingly ambivalent attitude toward vigilantism — the film seems to stoke the fires in favor of taking justice into your own hands, then abruptly does a 180-degree switch.
The filmmakers — director Colin Trevorrow and writer Gregg Hurwitz — seem most at ease when accentuating the positive, showing us the joys and good humor of this loving family. The movie is less satisfying when conveying the more downbeat material, showing an unappealing streak of self-righteousness.
Susan is a good role for the redoubtable Watts, who gives us a compelling and surprisingly complex performance as a not-quite-grown-up mother. The actors playing the boys, especially Lieberher, are pretty spot-on, and Peter’s adoration of his older sibling is nicely conveyed. Silverman’s smallish role not only uses her comedic talents but also gives her a chance to show the dramatic chops she demonstrated as the lead in “I Smile Back.”