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Henry Poole Is Here

Knowing nothing about this movie when I went to the screening other than that it starred Luke Wilson, I presumed it was going to be some sort of a comedy, that being the kind of film in which one is most likely to find Owen’s younger brother. What I saw instead was a drama about the role of faith in living one’s life. Some national reviews have pigeonholed the film as Christian proselytizing, which didn’t strike me as accurate. So I went to the press notes to see if director Mark Pellington (Arlington Road, numerous music videos for the likes of U2, Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails) had anything to say about his perception of the story. He writes about the death of his wife a few years ago, an unexpected event that left him a loss as how to carry on as the father of a young child. For him the film is about choosing to go forward in life after a setback that seems insurmountable. A worthy goal, certainly, and one I hope he was able to accomplish in his own life. However useful the film may have been to its maker as therapy, though, I can’t say it provided this viewer with any insight into the human condition. Wilson’s titular character is a morose loner who moves into a shabby house in a Los Angeles suburb, where he simply wants to be left alone to drink and eat junk food. He’s clearly preparing to die, which is not giving away anything even though the script doesn’t provide us with any details until halfway through the film (and then only minimally). What happens to him and those around him, you can interpret as you choose, as either a miracle in the literal, Christian sense, or an embrace of faith in the most generic sense. It hardly makes any difference given that the characters are so one-dimensional as to have little dramatic impact outside of the very narrow concerns of the script. Henry Poole is Here is a movie that some may chose to find meaning in, but that’s more a matter of what lens you view it through than anything the film succeeds in imparting.

m. faust


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