The Book of Henry, 9/10 (on the so bad it's good scale)
Jesus Christ almighty, what in the sweet hell did I just watch?
I had another one of my bad movie nights, and the picks were this and The Island of Dr Moreau from 1996. I'd seen only the latter one before, so The Book of Henry was a total enigma for me. I knew it was supposed to be preposterous, but I didn't think it could well surpass the movie where Marlon Brando stars with a literal bucket on his head in one scene. So imagine my surprise when it turned out to be one of the best-worst movies I've seen possibly ever. It's a unique sort of car crash where a competent production and well-regarded actors meet a script so utterly bonkers that I genuinely struggle to find the words to convey the full extent of the experience.
Jaeden Martell (mostly known for the 2017 It and Knives Out) plays Henry, an 11-year old child genius who I think is supposed to come across as endearingly precocious, but instead (as Yahtzee put it in his Forspoken review) gives off more of a "richly deserves a paving slab to the teeth vibe". He's one of the most supreme self-insert Mary Sues I've ever seen: financial genius, basically a doctor, wondrously profound for his age, supremely considerate and perceptive of his surroundings and peers. The plot initially concerns him suspecting his neighbor being abused by her stepfather and investigating it, and to spoil anything after that would kind of ruin the experience, because the movie just ramps off to Mars in terms of its sheer lunacy.
I would try to compare this to other movies, but it's genuinely unlike anything I've ever seen: insufferably quirky, cutesy and twee in the way only the worst indie movies dream of, diabetes-inducingly melodramatic and schmaltzy with a heaping scoop of Oscar bait pretensions, and also just bugfuck nuts in a way I've perhaps only seen matched in Neil Breen movies. Nearly every line from Henry's mouth made me groan aloud. There are some skin-crawlingly creepy scenes that I think are supposed to come across as charming. The movie operates on a completely alien understanding of both logic and human beings. It is legitimately a movie where it feels like anything can happen, because it's just so fucking crazy. Based on the opening credits you could never even dream of the places this movie goes. And what's weird is that Naomi Watts and Dean Norris seem oddly on board with the whole thing. They don't feel out of place, and they commit to the madness of the script with flying colours.
As far as entertainment value goes, this is about as good as it gets without wandering into Tommy Wiseau / Neil Breen territory. I'm so fucking glad that this got a theatrical release, because if this were to be released today, it would just get lost in the endless sea of streaming service filler. The fact that I have it on physical media makes me so happy. See it, preferably with friends and alcohol. It'll be a night you'll never forget.
Jesus Christ almighty, what in the sweet hell did I just watch?
I had another one of my bad movie nights, and the picks were this and The Island of Dr Moreau from 1996. I'd seen only the latter one before, so The Book of Henry was a total enigma for me. I knew it was supposed to be preposterous, but I didn't think it could well surpass the movie where Marlon Brando stars with a literal bucket on his head in one scene. So imagine my surprise when it turned out to be one of the best-worst movies I've seen possibly ever. It's a unique sort of car crash where a competent production and well-regarded actors meet a script so utterly bonkers that I genuinely struggle to find the words to convey the full extent of the experience.
Jaeden Martell (mostly known for the 2017 It and Knives Out) plays Henry, an 11-year old child genius who I think is supposed to come across as endearingly precocious, but instead (as Yahtzee put it in his Forspoken review) gives off more of a "richly deserves a paving slab to the teeth vibe". He's one of the most supreme self-insert Mary Sues I've ever seen: financial genius, basically a doctor, wondrously profound for his age, supremely considerate and perceptive of his surroundings and peers. The plot initially concerns him suspecting his neighbor being abused by her stepfather and investigating it, and to spoil anything after that would kind of ruin the experience, because the movie just ramps off to Mars in terms of its sheer lunacy.
I would try to compare this to other movies, but it's genuinely unlike anything I've ever seen: insufferably quirky, cutesy and twee in the way only the worst indie movies dream of, diabetes-inducingly melodramatic and schmaltzy with a heaping scoop of Oscar bait pretensions, and also just bugfuck nuts in a way I've perhaps only seen matched in Neil Breen movies. Nearly every line from Henry's mouth made me groan aloud. There are some skin-crawlingly creepy scenes that I think are supposed to come across as charming. The movie operates on a completely alien understanding of both logic and human beings. It is legitimately a movie where it feels like anything can happen, because it's just so fucking crazy. Based on the opening credits you could never even dream of the places this movie goes. And what's weird is that Naomi Watts and Dean Norris seem oddly on board with the whole thing. They don't feel out of place, and they commit to the madness of the script with flying colours.
As far as entertainment value goes, this is about as good as it gets without wandering into Tommy Wiseau / Neil Breen territory. I'm so fucking glad that this got a theatrical release, because if this were to be released today, it would just get lost in the endless sea of streaming service filler. The fact that I have it on physical media makes me so happy. See it, preferably with friends and alcohol. It'll be a night you'll never forget.
