Review: THE BOOK OF HENRY is an Interesting and Emotional Adventure Thriller

I was looking forward to seeing director Colin Trevorrow’s The Book of Henry. I liked what I saw in the trailers and was interested in seeing how the concept of the story we were presented in the trailers would play out. The story centers around a genius kid by the name of Henry, who is wonderfully played by Jaeden Lieberher. He may only be 11-years-old, but he is the man of the family, the one who takes care of his mom and his brother and all the important stuff. Over time he comes to realize that his next door neighbor is abusing his step-daughter and after no one listens to him he comes up with an elaborate plan to rescue his friend. This is a plan that his mom must carry out.

I won’t get into the spoiler details, but this turned out to be an extremely heavy and emotional film. What made it so weird is that it was also an adventurous suspense thriller that was trying to be fun and playful. It was just hard to get into the fun elements with all of the emotional stuff going on. There was so much happening, that trying to fit all of those story elements and emotions into an hour and forty-five minutes just didn’t really work. 

The Book of Henry would have probably worked better as series. It would have allowed for the characters to be fleshed out a bit more and have a better flow to the story. The movie just felt like they were trying to rush through the story and there was no time to digest everything that was going on. It’s not necessarily a bad film. It’s just the way the story was presented didn’t quite work in such a short period of time.

I do have to point out that the acting in the film was phenomenal. On top of Lieberher’s fantastic performance, Naomi Watts, who plays Henry’s mom Susan, gave one of the better performances of her career. Then there was Jason Tremblay, who played Henry’s younger brother, Peter. That kid is freakin’ talented and there were scenes in the film where he completely shined. The movie also starred Sarah Silverman and Lee Pace, who we both great.

The movie had some unexpected twists and turns that I didn’t see coming, which made things interesting. I thought it was an interesting story concept and I think there’s an audience out there that might like this movie. I’m not saying not to go see it. If you liked what you saw in the trailers then I’d say check it out!