The Book of Henry (2017)

The Book of Henry is the kind of swing-for-the-fences movie you don’t see often: a suburban drama that gradually tilts into a tense moral thriller, powered less by spectacle than by aching emotion and nervy conviction. Colin Trevorrow commits to an offbeat premise with surprising sincerity, and the film holds together because Naomi Watts brings raw, lived-in vulnerability to a mother asked to become braver than she knows how to be, while Jaeden Martell and Jacob Tremblay give the story its bruised heart. The vibe is intimate and uneasy, with a mystery simmering next door and a growing sense that doing the right thing might cost everything. It won’t be for viewers who prefer tidy tonal lanes, but if you’re open to a film that’s ambitious, odd, and genuinely felt, it’s hard not to admire how fully it goes for it.

The Book of Henry is clearly trying to be a heartfelt suburban drama that swerves into a dark moral thriller, with a big emphasis on grief, justice, and a mother finding her backbone. The problem is the movie can’t decide what it wants to be, so the tone lurches from quirky kid-genius whimsy to grim subject matter to tear-jerking melodrama in a way that feels engineered rather than earned. The plot hinges on contrivances that may leave you thinking less about the characters and more about the screenplay yanking you to the next “moment,” which makes the emotional beats land with a thud for a lot of viewers. If you’re sensitive to stories that use heavy themes as narrative fuel, or you want a grounded thriller with consistent logic, this will likely frustrate you—but Naomi Watts and the young cast do what they can, and a few scenes have genuine warmth when the film stops trying so hard to shock you.