Walking into Henry Poole is Here I had no idea who was in it or what it was about. To say I was approaching it with “fresh” eyes would be quite accurate. As it turns out the film stars Luke Wilson, Radha Mitchell looking better than she ever has before and Adriana Barraza in her first feature film since being nominated for her role in Babel. Directed by Mark Pellington, I actually enjoyed this film for about 80 of its 100 minutes, but the ending took everything the film did right and made it all wrong.
Henry Poole is Here focuses on Luke Wilson playing the title character. We meet him and he seems to not have a care in the world. He drops $325k on a crappy house, picks up alcohol and junk food from the grocery store and proceeds to lie down and seemingly wait to die. However, his nosy neighbors won’t allow that to happen… at least not peacefully.
Adriana Barraza is once again fantastic in a role 180-degrees opposite of the doom and gloom she portrayed in Babel. Here she plays a busybody neighbor who’s peskiness (is that a word?) ultimately leads her to Henry’s backyard where she discovers a stain on the side of his house and believes she is staring into the face of Jesus. Her insistence throws a wrench into Henry’s plans, but when the recently divorced Dawn (Radha Mitchell) and her daughter Millie (Morgan Lilly) begin to take an interest in Henry and the stain respectively, Henry’s lust for total solitude begins to dwindle.
Throughout the film a secret looms and Henry seems to be the only skeptic in the powers the stain on his stucco wall seems to be having. It creates something of an atheist versus believer view, or if you like things a little more cheery (and perhaps accurate), one man without hope against those with hope. This is where Pellington and writer Albert Torres go astray. Throughout the film they walk the line between appeasing faithful and non-believers alike. It allows for a very well developed relationship with the audience as both camps in the belief or non-belief of a higher power are satisfied. However, by the end of the film all of that goes away and we end up with a story just like everything else we have seen before.
The debate asking whether God truly exists is a fascinating one when dealing with open minded sides of the argument and it is even more fascinating in the face of supposed miracles. Henry Poole is Here offers up that fascinating perspective only to rip it away in the end for your standard Hollywood ending. Considering this is a low budget indie film would it really have hurt to risk a little bit in terms of telling the story? The same amount of people are going to see it either way and perhaps you would be credited with doing something original in the process. Just a thought.
C
