Book of Henry is what happens when you take a script intended to be a dark comedy and have the actors play it straight and put in a lot of heartfelt music to show that it's meant to be sincere. It's a weird, shambling, obnoxious Frankenstein that doesn't have the media literacy to understand how absurd and tonally dissonant it is. This is hardly surprising coming from Colin Trevorrow; Jurassic World was one of the worst movies of the 2010s. Whatever the guy does, he does with the smugness of the fourteen-year-old edge lord who just skimmed Infinite Jest and is now convinced he's got everything figured out. Suffice it to say Naomi Watts plays a mother who can't make a single life decision without consulting her eleven-year-old son, Sarah Silverman kisses a child full on the lips, and sexual abuse against the underage neighbor girl (who is not developed as a character whatsoever) is only treated as important insofar as it affects our hero Henry.
I'd say skip this one, but there are a lot of unintentional laughs to be had. Save it for a bad movie night.
I'd say skip this one, but there are a lot of unintentional laughs to be had. Save it for a bad movie night.
