The Book of Henry | Little White Lies

The Book of Henry

19 Jun 2017 / Released: 23 Jun 2017

Two children wearing sweaters and goggles, one with a striped top and the other with a plain green jumper, standing in a room with shelves and a window.
Two children wearing sweaters and goggles, one with a striped top and the other with a plain green jumper, standing in a room with shelves and a window.
3

Anticipation.

The director of a future Star Wars movie gets his own passion project. Yes, we want to see it.

1

Enjoyment.

What… was that?

1

In Retrospect.

A thinker. Can it really be as bad as it appears? Probably, is the answer.

The direc­tor of Juras­sic World skids off the rails in this baf­fling­ly mis­guid­ed kid­die revenge fantasia.

[Sound of phone ringing]

Son: Hel­lo?”

Moth­er: Hel­lo, hel­lo. Why haven’t you called me? You said you would.”

Son: Aww, I’ve been busy ma. Work’s been cray-cray. […] Crazy.”

Moth­er: You mean you couldn’t just call me while you were trav­el­ling home, or in the evening? Just to talk for a few min­utes so I know you’re okay?

Son: I’m sor­ry, my head’s been else­where just try­ing to keep on top of things.”

Moth­er: Well okay, but do try to stay in touch. I worry.”

Son: I know you wor­ry, and I wor­ry that you worry.”

Moth­er: So what are you doing right now?”

Son: I’m on my way home.”

Moth­er: Where from? Work, at this time?”

Son: No, no, I’ve just been to see a movie.”

Moth­er: Oh, any­thing I might like?”

Son: Erm… not real­ly. Not your thing. Not anyone’s thing, actually.”

Moth­er: What do you mean by that?”

Son: Well… hold on [Son stops walk­ing and sits down on a bench] …Yes, it was very strange. I can’t even begin to describe it. Actu­al­ly, I could describe it, but you wouldn’t believe me. You’d think I was mak­ing it all up.”

Moth­er: Go on…”

[Son out­lines the plot of Col­in Trevorrow’s fea­ture film The Book of Hen­ry in minute detail]

Moth­er: [Stunned silence]

Son: Ma? Are you there ma? He- hell-“

Moth­er: [Heavy sigh] I’m here… I’m here…”

[Moth­er places her hand over the receiv­er and mut­ters some­thing into the dead air]

Son: So yeah, that was the movie I just saw. Crazy, eh?”

Moth­er: This was an actu­al movie? A fin­ished product?”

Son: Yup. Done and dust­ed with prop­er movie stars, cred­its, music, the whole bit.”

Moth­er: I know this might sound naïve, but before Nao­mi Watts signed on to be in this film, do you think she would’ve seen the script first? Or spo­ken to any­one involved?”

Son: Well yes, I think so. These are high­ly skilled, high­ly paid Hol­ly­wood stars and I sus­pect they’d have some say in their future col­lab­o­ra­tions. You do hear of actors being sent scripts as a way to lure them in.”

Moth­er: Could the script have been very dif­fer­ent to the fin­ished prod­uct? From what you’ve described, the plot seems pret­ty black and white. I mean, there’s no way all that stuff could’ve been lost in trans­la­tion. It would’ve been evi­dent from the off that it starts up as one thing and ends up as some­thing else.”

Son: Yup. Frankly I’m baf­fled that some­one didn’t inter­vene. They could’ve been real­ly nice about it. Guys, I think we need to shut down, retool, iron out some of the tonal kinks’.”

Moth­er: So hold on, let me get this straight. There’s a beloved boy genius, he’s try­ing to save his next door neigh­bour from abuse because the author­i­ties refuse to help, and then he just [redact­ed] out of the blue? Are movies real­ly allowed to do things like that? Imag­ine if, say, Audrey Hep­burn in Roman Hol­i­day [redact­ed] out of the blue mid way in. It would be a dis­as­ter. They wouldn’t have made it to the Tre­vi Fountain.”

Son: I know. I can’t quite believe it either. I mean, obvi­ous­ly that peo­ple can and do just [redact­ed] in an instant, and that we have to accept that sad fact of human nature. But to do that in a movie just seems crass and, frankly, pret­ty cheap. And the weird thing is that it’s quite nice up until that point. Every­one involved seems ful­ly invest­ed in it.”

Moth­er: I guess you’ve got to make your mon­ey some­how. So, what will you write about this movie? It seems like a tough one to get across.”

Son: I’ll spend some time pon­der­ing it, that’s for cer­tain. I don’t want to just make a list of the ele­ments that didn’t work for me, I don’t think that would amply cov­er it. I will say that the more I think about it, the more wrong this movie feels.”

Moth­er: What do you mean by wrong’?”

Son: I think I mean that this movie does things – quite a few things – that feel point­ed­ly coun­ter­in­tu­itive. Like, you know how humans have reflex reac­tions that nat­u­ral­ly pro­tect us from cer­tain things? When a fris­bee is hurtling towards my face, I’ll put my arm up to block it from hit­ting me between the eyes. The Book of Hen­ry feels like a film whose motor func­tions are com­plete­ly shot. Not even slow, just non-exis­tent. The fris­bee hits this film in the face over, and over, and over…”

Moth­er: That must hurt.”

Son: Yes.”

[…]

Moth­er: Col­in Trevorrow?”

Son: Yes. Seems like a decent guy. He made a Juras­sic Park sequel that made lots of mon­ey. I guess this is his lit­tle pas­sion project that he got to do in gratitude.”

Moth­er: Well, I must say this sounds strange, but I’d quite like to see it now. You’ve sold it to me.”

Son: You should see it. I’ll admit that I had fun watch­ing it. It’s nice to some­times see warped visions of how human’s oper­ate. Any­way, I got­ta dash for the train now.”

Moth­er: It was nice to talk. Call me again next week. I want to hear how the review goes.”

Son: I’ll def­i­nite­ly try. And yes, this was nice.”

Moth­er: I… I miss you.”

[pause]

Son: The time, I gotta–

Moth­er: Yes, I know. Go, go, go.”

Son: Speak soon!”

Moth­er: See you.”

[Hangs up]

NB: This was the last time the moth­er ever got to speak to her son as he died from a mys­tery ail­ment on the train jour­ney home. She end­ed up writ­ing this review.

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