Review of Henry Poole Is Here (2008) by Derric D — 14 Aug 2008

Let's get the good out of the way: the soundtrack is pretty decent, the acting (especially Wilson) is not bad, and there is some cool camera technique.

The first mistake of the movie is the choice of subject matter. It's almost impossible to delve into the topic of faith and suffering in film without becoming cliche and sentimental. And that's exactly what this movie becomes, as hard as it tries to stay away from it. I literally rolled my eyes a couple times, it was that bad.

SPOILER: The storyline is incredibly predictable up until the ending, but that doesn't mean it gets better. It means it gets worse...Luke Wilson doesn't die, in fact, he was never sick to begin with (which is never explained by the way). I kept thinking the whole time, "there's no way they're going to let him live, at least let him die and redeem something of a mess of a film"...but nope. Wilson is totally fine, and everyone lives happily ever after. This all happens in the last five to ten minutes of the movie, it's comes off as completely ad-hoc. Anyways...if you like sentimental movies, you *might* like this, but it's not for me.