Review of The Book of Henry (2017) by Jacob M — 11 Dec 2017

An easy contender for the worst picture of the year, The Book of Henry is a baffling stew of nonsense mixed together with enough bizarre tonal shifts, bad dialogue, and disinterested actors to drown a Star Wars prequel. Its story concerns a young prodigy and his family. Henry has "movie genius syndrome" and is SOOO intelligent he basically finances the household by playing the stock market. His mother, played by Naomi Watts, is a mostly irresponsible and borderline lazy womanchild who prefers to play Gears of War and drink with her best friend, Sarah Silverman. Therefore, Henry raises his younger brother and grows up with his mother. Oh, and he builds elaborates Rube Goldberg machines because that equates "mad genius" in movie language. Then, randomly halfway through the movie, Henry's case of "movie genius syndrome" produces a tumor that puts him in a hospital for two weeks and fucking kills him. (But not before the eleven-year-old gets to make out with Sarah Silverman. So...umm...yea?).

With our protagonist now dead, Naomi Watts discovers a message left behind by Henry. It turns out that that the chief of police next door (Dean Norris) is molesting his step daughter and our precocious child hero had uncovered the truth and was devising a plan all along. He encourages his mother to fucking assassinate this public official using money and instructions he has left behind. Naomi Watts AGREES to this idiotic plan and does the business of preparing for the deed by purchasing a high-powered sniper rifle and practicing in the backyard, shooting literally 40 feet away from her intended victim. And this is all to the backdrop of an impending grade school talent show because this is a fuckin family movie, goddamn it. Now why the hell did I just tell you the "plot" of this movie? Because it's so goddamn bizarre that you would not believe how utterly retarded The Book of Henry was, if I didn't tell you this bullshit that someone actually got paid to write.

Colin Trevorrow was successful in making both cute indy comedy Safety Not Guaranteed and bloated mega-blockbuster Jurassic World work wonders with extremely archetypal characters. But he is so disinterested here that every shot looks flat, boring, and lifeless. It is perhaps the worst looking movie I have seen in a couple of years. Naomi Watts deserves credit for making the maudlin moments of the film work, especially regarding Henry's death and the finale, but she's the only one. Every other character is irritating, strange, and inhuman. Like fucking aliens wanted to make a small family drama with a bit of a twist but instead shoved together material from three different genres and gave us a howler for the ages. The Book of Henry was a disaster and a bomb to be sure, but it will remain great fodder for B-movie showings and film school discussions on how NOT TO MAKE A MOVIE.