There is something contrived about this story in which people with major problems find a resolution.
Henry Poole Is Here (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:85
Fresh:32
Rotten:53
Average Rating:5/10
Consensus: Full of Hallmark-truisms and pop songs presented with strained significance, this comic foible intends less to convert than to preach to the choir.
Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins
Genre: Comedies
US Box Office: $1,749,146
Synopsis: For a man who seems to be living a perfect life--comfortable, engaged, full of opportunity--the discovery in a routine doctor's checkup that all is not well prompts Henry Poole to flee. He finds... For a man who seems to be living a perfect life--comfortable, engaged, full of opportunity--the discovery in a routine doctor's checkup that all is not well prompts Henry Poole to flee. He finds himself alone in a new house and a new place, somewhere where perhaps he can try to escape the fate that he has been dealt. It's a house in a working-class suburb with neighbors who welcome him, or at least try to; he finds them rather unattractive, frankly, but fine for his purposes. But life won't let him alone. His neighbors' intrusions, the discovery of a "miracle" on a backyard wall, and the attentions of a little girl with a tape recorder disrupt whatever hopes he had for hiding out. Director Mark Pellington revisits Sundance (Going All the Way played at the 1997 Festival) with a very personal work about devastation and the need to find yourself. Inspired by Pellington's own loss, Henry Poole Is Here is a work that is soul searching in the best sense of the word. Poignant, yet acerbic and funny, it tells us about faith, the vagaries of life and death, and personal salvation. Powered by a resonant performance from the remarkable Luke Wilson, Henry Poole Is Here is full of small moments and meanings that make it a memorable film. -- © Sundance Film Festival [More]
Starring: Luke Wilson, George Lopez, Cheryl Hines, Radha Mitchell
Starring: Luke Wilson, George Lopez, Cheryl Hines, Radha Mitchell, Adriana Barraza
Director: Mark Pellington
Director: Mark Pellington
Screenwriter: Albert Torres
Studio: Overture Films
Reviews for Henry Poole Is Here
In the world of Henry Poole Is Here miracles exist, faith is the wisest operating principle and intelligent thought is everywhere discouraged.
This director deals in faces and facts, the camera closing in on his actors so they can deliver their big picture pronouncements while crying on cue.
A grossly obvious take on the draining push and pull of faith, the picture is warm to the touch, just not digestible or, ultimately, meaningful.
Hope and faith, by their very nature, are issues that need to be handled with question marks. And yet, Henry Poole Is Here features nothing but ham-fisted periods.
Good intentions, and a rare attempt to embrace spirituality on screen, aren't enough to make Henry Poole is Here a worthy destination.
"Henry Poole is Here" is not a movie, but rather a sketch for a screenplay that was never written. If ever there was a cinematic impetus to give up all hope for humanity and free expression, it is this patronizing, condescending, and vacuous waste of cell
Henry Poole works hard to convert us, even pulling out quotes from Noam Chomsky, but it feels a little too much like a bumper sticker.
[It] works only insofar as you buy into its premise. If you're a skeptic... the real miracle may seem that the film was made at all.
[This] story of retreat and redemption, while deeply personal, may mean more to Pellington than to the audience. The miraculous elements in Albert Torres's script that offer hope also strain credulity.
A stronger script focus and less unanswered questions about Henry Poole might have made the film more appealing.
It's like a pushy neighbor who keeps inviting you to church and won't take no for an answer.
The kind of movie where you could read the first 20 pages of the screenplay and accurately predict what will happen in the remaining 80.
A shaggy God story, theological Capracorn that will be indigestible except to the already converted...Henry Poole Is Here is a movie that isn't all there.
The further the characters venture into the mystic, the more the movie itself seems to dissipate.
Latest News for Henry Poole Is Here
April 27, 2008:
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