‘The Book Of Henry’ Is The Ultimate Precocious Child Genius Movie [Review]

Precocious child geniuses have become every bit as cliché and hackneyed a Hollywood trope as the single mother who has to work in a diner to support her family or the grizzled cop who, with one day left before retirement, uncovers a labyrinthine mystery that goes all the way to the top. With Colin Trevorrow‘s “The Book of Henry,” the precocious child genius trope is fully exploited, embellished and embroidered upon, to the point that, if there was never another precocious child genius in a movie again, that’d be just fine.

This is a film that starts out like most solid mid-level indie dramas – Henry (Jaeden Lieberher, who played a similarly gifted child in Jeff Nichols‘ wonderful “Midnight Special“) lives with his hardworking single mother (Naomi Watts) and decidedly normal little brother (Jacob Tremblay). Henry has an innate ability to work out problems and puzzle out solutions; his mom may work at the local diner but he assures her she never has to work again, since he handles her investments and stock portfolios. But a problem that has a harder answer comes in the form of the girl next door (Maddie Ziegler), who Henry believes is being abused by her stepfather, the local police commissioner (Dean Norris). Now, it’s hard to describe the rest of the movie without dipping into spoiler territory, and if you’ve seen the bizarre theatrical trailer for the film, you know that there are some abrupt shifts in the narrative. Here’s what I can safely say: at some point Henry passes his findings over to his mother (they’re contained in the titular book) and it’s up to her to make sure the stepfather stops abusing the young girl.

This is the rare movie when the precocious child genius, even when he’s not on screen, casts a kind of otherworldly glow on the rest of the proceedings. He’s a guiding force no matter where he is, and the lengths to which Trevorrow and his collaborators go, both in explaining just how special he is and letting that specialness affect every other character in the movie, is both admirable and overwhelming.

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“The Book of Henry” has one of those scripts, by novelist and comic book writer Gregg Hurwitz, that has generated buzz and been passed around Hollywood for years, without ever getting produced. And you can understand why; it’s a screenplay full of unexpected narrative zigzags, dialogue that’s comprised largely of tics and wordy affectations, and WTF-worthy moments that undoubtedly jumped off the page when reading it. But as a movie, the entire thing feels forced and hollow, less an authentic expression of the human experience and more a gee-whiz exercise in cleverness, slathered in a healthy coat of multiplex-friendly weirdness.

And it’s not like those involved don’t give it their all, because they do. In particular the actors, led by Watts, commit fully to both their characters and the narrative’s ooey-gooey instability. Even Sarah Silverman, cast as a trashy waitress (you can tell because of her tattoos), is believable and committed. Trevorrow, who started out as an indie favorite with “Safety Not Guaranteed” before graduating to the $1 billion-grossing “Jurassic World,” seems to split the difference between his first two films. Yes, this is a smaller, more intimate experience, full of more identifiably human characters, but he also tries to transport some of that twinkly, Spielberg-ian magic that he is obviously such a fan of. The influence of Spielberg can be felt in some of the misadventures Henry and his younger brother get in to, which are reminiscent of “The Goonies,” to an early poster that mimicked the work of Spielberg artist Drew Struzan, to Michael Giacchino‘s music, which hums with the warmth and earnestness of the very best John Williams‘ scores. (It should be noted that the Giacchino score is really, really great.)

But all of the good intentions don’t add up to much, because “The Book of Henry” is such an odd, off-putting scenario. These are characters we are supposed to know in real life, but they behave in utterly alien ways and are placed in unfathomable situations (and honestly, it puts actors like Watts to the absolute test when they have to do things like have a one-way conversation with a recording they’re listening to). Big subjects, like domestic violence, are glossed over and simplified to the point of abstraction, while thematically, the idea of making your time on this earth count through the power of your actions, becomes dulled when the ultimate action being emphasized is coldblooded revenge.

There are some who will undoubtedly be charmed by just how nutty this movie is, how a small-scale family drama can be augmented with thriller movie dimensions and anchored by the most precocious child genius in the history of film. But just because a movie is different (and, to be sure, this ain’t “The Mummy” we’re dealing with here) doesn’t mean that it’s good. Yes, it’s a reprieve from the maddening summer movie onslaught, but the water at this particular oasis has such a weird taste to it, even an unpleasant option like Coca-Cola might be a better option. [C-]