- Joined
- Mar 24, 2017
- Posts
- 103
Hi, so there hasn't been much talk about movies here, so I figured I'd just start posting some thoughts or reviews on occasion. Wrote one up an hour or so ago, so here.
The Book of Henry
There’s an allure to child genius characters in fiction. As readers, viewers, and players, there is something inherently cool about seeing a child dwarf adults in their intelligence and ability to understand the world around them. When we go into film, we put ourselves in the place of its protagonist, feeling what they feel, doing as they do. When we watch a child genius do their thing on screen, we almost get a feel for what being that genius is like. Perhaps it is that sort of rush - that connection, that makes us not immediately repulse the idea of seeing one on in action.
Unfortunately, in the case of serious drama, you must also take your character writing seriously. Children are complex, difficult creatures to write, as most of us no longer think as we did when we were children. It is sometimes hard to empathize with and understand the minds of underdeveloped humans, as we’re so used to focusing on that of the developed. When writing a child genius, many authors, as a consequence, think that they can bypass that “child” part. These characters often aren’t children, but adults written to be in a child’s body.
Such is how Henry, played by the talented Jaeden Lieberher, acts throughout the course of the film. Henry is an intelligent, sometimes emotionally reserved young genius who is capable of juggling the stock market and leading his family to financial security. He acts like an adult, talks like an adult, and demonstrates greater intelligence than what the typical adult in America is expected to. He is, through and through, an example of talent, maturity, and decent goodwill made manifest in the body of a child. He is not a child, however, nor is he a character. He is a plot device meant to affect the lives of the characters around him.
This is not a narrative sin of writing within itself. If The Book of Henry’s main goal was to entertain, then, for the first third of the film, his antics and interactions with other characters are perfectly fine. Unfortunately, the film has something to say - or at least, it thinks it does.
Henry has a few things he wants to deal with aside from his family’s financial security. He’s trying to stop his brother’s bullying at school, and on top of it all, conspiring to help end the abuse of his next-door neighbor’s step daughter. During what is perhaps Henry’s most character defining moment throughout the movie, he and his mother have a conversation regarding violence. Henry suggests that violence is not as bad as apathy - a belief which drives his actions throughout the rest of the film.
Considering how violently the game and tone of the film shifts as movie goes on, that belief of his is the only thing Colin Trevorrow’s film has to remain stable. A great part of the film deals with his efforts to stop his neighbor’s abuse, but the viewers never get to see the abuse in action - or even out of action. It is true that in storytelling, less is more. However, when incapable of getting an emotional connection to the princess in the castle worth saving, it is impossible to feel anything regarding what should be the most important story in the film.
All of this would be okay, given the film treated itself as entertainment rather than a meaningful film filled with rich and deserved emotions. Instead, it wants to impact the viewer with the heavy implications of death, child abuse, bullying, and more, without even touching upon the realities of the very themes it proclaims to uphold. These creators are manipulating the viewers, hoping to impress rather than educate, or to help empathize.
This film has nothing to say about what the life of a genius may be like, nor what the struggles of child abuse might be like, nor the struggles of losing a loved one. It dares to approach all of these doors, but never bothers to open them, just hoping you’ll see it get close and think that perhaps the creators of the film are regulars of these rooms they meekly reached out to.
Colin Trevorrow stated in an interview that he merely wished to create a film for both critics and audiences alike, but in trying to appeal to the largest group of people possible, his creation lost all sense of meaning and purpose, becoming an amorphous blob where entertainment and art jiggled around haphazardly, never meeting, never forming into something palpable.
1.5/4 stars.
The Book of Henry
There’s an allure to child genius characters in fiction. As readers, viewers, and players, there is something inherently cool about seeing a child dwarf adults in their intelligence and ability to understand the world around them. When we go into film, we put ourselves in the place of its protagonist, feeling what they feel, doing as they do. When we watch a child genius do their thing on screen, we almost get a feel for what being that genius is like. Perhaps it is that sort of rush - that connection, that makes us not immediately repulse the idea of seeing one on in action.
Unfortunately, in the case of serious drama, you must also take your character writing seriously. Children are complex, difficult creatures to write, as most of us no longer think as we did when we were children. It is sometimes hard to empathize with and understand the minds of underdeveloped humans, as we’re so used to focusing on that of the developed. When writing a child genius, many authors, as a consequence, think that they can bypass that “child” part. These characters often aren’t children, but adults written to be in a child’s body.
Such is how Henry, played by the talented Jaeden Lieberher, acts throughout the course of the film. Henry is an intelligent, sometimes emotionally reserved young genius who is capable of juggling the stock market and leading his family to financial security. He acts like an adult, talks like an adult, and demonstrates greater intelligence than what the typical adult in America is expected to. He is, through and through, an example of talent, maturity, and decent goodwill made manifest in the body of a child. He is not a child, however, nor is he a character. He is a plot device meant to affect the lives of the characters around him.
This is not a narrative sin of writing within itself. If The Book of Henry’s main goal was to entertain, then, for the first third of the film, his antics and interactions with other characters are perfectly fine. Unfortunately, the film has something to say - or at least, it thinks it does.
Henry has a few things he wants to deal with aside from his family’s financial security. He’s trying to stop his brother’s bullying at school, and on top of it all, conspiring to help end the abuse of his next-door neighbor’s step daughter. During what is perhaps Henry’s most character defining moment throughout the movie, he and his mother have a conversation regarding violence. Henry suggests that violence is not as bad as apathy - a belief which drives his actions throughout the rest of the film.
Considering how violently the game and tone of the film shifts as movie goes on, that belief of his is the only thing Colin Trevorrow’s film has to remain stable. A great part of the film deals with his efforts to stop his neighbor’s abuse, but the viewers never get to see the abuse in action - or even out of action. It is true that in storytelling, less is more. However, when incapable of getting an emotional connection to the princess in the castle worth saving, it is impossible to feel anything regarding what should be the most important story in the film.
All of this would be okay, given the film treated itself as entertainment rather than a meaningful film filled with rich and deserved emotions. Instead, it wants to impact the viewer with the heavy implications of death, child abuse, bullying, and more, without even touching upon the realities of the very themes it proclaims to uphold. These creators are manipulating the viewers, hoping to impress rather than educate, or to help empathize.
This film has nothing to say about what the life of a genius may be like, nor what the struggles of child abuse might be like, nor the struggles of losing a loved one. It dares to approach all of these doors, but never bothers to open them, just hoping you’ll see it get close and think that perhaps the creators of the film are regulars of these rooms they meekly reached out to.
Colin Trevorrow stated in an interview that he merely wished to create a film for both critics and audiences alike, but in trying to appeal to the largest group of people possible, his creation lost all sense of meaning and purpose, becoming an amorphous blob where entertainment and art jiggled around haphazardly, never meeting, never forming into something palpable.
1.5/4 stars.
