“Before my death, mommy, I have but one request: I want you to whack a guy.” Begging the question, “Do you honor the posthumous murder wish from your tragically inclined child?” one film made for rather creative morality this week. Yes, genius 11-year-old, Henry (Jaeden Lieberher), dies of a brain tumor and leaves behind an appeal with detailed instructions for his single mother, Susan Carpenter (Naomi Watts), to kill the next door neighbor. It’s ok; the next door neighbor is a child abuser. And these instructions are all laid out in The Book of Henry.
It’s kinda hard to get beyond that, isn’t it? Funny thing is the film makes vigilante justice beyond the grave seem perfectly reasonable. Well, sure you’re bound to have an 11-year-old capable of writing a doctoral thesis and low-balling the soybean market; that’s gonna happen. And when you have a pre-teen with the intellect of a tenured professor and the maturity of Atticus Finch, well, they’re probably gonna die prematurely of a sudden illness; stands to reason. And why wouldn’t the kid leave a detailed Murder-for-Dummies manual which includes finessing illegal weaponry out of the shady local arms dealer; what? No added side-note that if you supply an ounce of blow to the local snitch, he looks the other way? Why wouldn’t your precocious 11-year-old dying of a brain tumor not toss in that added gem? Maybe it’s in the director’s cut.
I’m getting ahead of myself – the Carpenter family is backwards. Mom is often a video-gaming child in need of direction; in lieu of an actual dad, Henry has assumed surrogate father responsibilities, like paying the bills and setting the family standards. I hate how films like this assume that intellectual maturity goes hand-in-hand with emotional maturity. Take it from Captain Underpants – your genius-level pre-sexual child may be able to understand Immanuel Kant, but odds are he’s still a sucker for an ice cream sundae.
Were Henry a tad older, he’d be in love with the girl next door, Christina (Maddie Ziegler). For now, he needs to save her, for Christina is being abused by her police commissioner step-father (Dean Norris). The Book of Henry is unclear as to whether the abuse is sexual as well as physical – in order to make the film child-friendly, the audience doesn’t see a single moment. As with most small towns throughout the world, the residents don’t care about child abuse and the high-ranking police are above investigation. Only Henry cares about the abuse. Go, Henry, go.
So, hey, fellow Oaklander Colin Trevorrow, I’d really enjoy your film if it weren’t so darn silly. I mean, yes, you’ve got a problem with making children into adults and 
adults into children, but I like your title subject up to the point where he becomes Henry, portrait of a serial killer. After that, I think we’re disRegarding Henry.
–Quick, somebody spoon-feed me another appropriate title—
Anyhoo, The Book of Henry is watchable enough, just absurd. Way out there absurd. You can’t make a reasonable case for mom, assassin. And Henry’s premature death suggests that his entire purpose on Earth was simply to deal with the evil next door step-father like some sort of cosmic recusal. I might like to have seen a slice of this life earlier in the timeline, like when Henry started taking over the household roles of his missing father, but then there probably wouldn’t have been a neighbor to kill, just a couple of hours.
♪ I wonder, wonder who, mmbadoo-ooh, who
Who backed the Book of Hank
Chapter One says to save her
The girl across the way
Chapter Two you figure
The manner in which you’ll slay
In Chapter Three you indulge
Immorality
In Chapter Four you absolve
Mommy’s killing spree
I wonder, wonder who, mmbadoo-ooh, who
Who was the dupe of Hank♫
Rated PG-13, 105 Minutes
D: Colin (the world of) Trevorrow
W: Gregg Hurwitz
Genre: 11-year-old dad
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: 11-year-old geniuses interested in murdering their neighbors
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Realists
♪ Parody inspired by “The Book of Love”
