Henry Poole Is Here (review)
This isn’t a movie: it’s a sermon. A gentle, relatively inoffensive sermon, to be sure -- the greatest affront to adherents to reason may be its suggestion that the idea of something that is not only unexplained but inexplicable is a good thing -- but nevertheless, this mild drama has nothing to offer nondevout Christians... and devout Christians probably don’t need its lesson on the value of choosing to believe. When the face of Jesus appears in a water stain on the side of the modest California house where “sad, angry” Henry (Luke Wilson: 3:10 to Yuma) lives, he rails against the little old church ladies who come to pray and, they hope, be healed of whatever ails them. Will the stain heal eventually whatever is ailing Henry? That the ending is inevitable is more forgiveable than the fact that everything is open to interpretation -- are miracles at work? does God exist? or is it all the power of suggestion at work on the mysterious human mind? -- until the one-hour mark, when all doubt is removed... and hence all need for faith as well. support
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Fri Aug 15 08, 9:21AM categories: reviews > 2008 theatrical releases permalink 2 pre-Disqus comments Disqus comments infoMPAA: rated PG for thematic elements and some language viewed at a semipublic screening with an audience of critics and ordinary moviegoers official site IMDB dvdAmazon U.S. Amazon U.K. tip jarshare
read moredrama fantasy related· new DVD releases in Region 2, July 13 · my week at the movies: ‘The Secret Life of Bees,’ ‘Body of Lies,’ ‘Good Dick,’ ‘Eagle Eye,’ ‘RocknRolla,’ ‘Religulous’ · bias update · new DVD releases in Region 1 and Region 2, week of March 30, 2009 · new on DVD (Region 1 and Region 2): week of January 19 · my week at the movies: ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars,’ ‘Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer,’ ‘Hounddog,’ ‘Henry Poole Is Here,’ ‘Sukiyaki Western Django’ · London photo of the day: the Occupy camp at St. Paul’s Cathedral · Kung Fu Panda 2 (review) · the oh-no! DVD of the week: ‘Nazis - UFO Conspiracy’ · watch it: “What Would Jesus NOT Do?” bloggyprevious post: the hacktacular “journalists” of ‘Swing Vote’ next post: Fly Me to the Moon (review) |
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pre-Disqus comments
posted by Will (Wed Mar 11 09, 1:24AM)
*Spoiler alert*
I caught this yesterday and actually really liked it. I'm more agnostic than atheist but nonetheless I had a bit of a different perspective. In the end, they dont tell you he is converted and I don't believe he is. I think the point of the film is that even if you don't believe in God and miracles, that somethings in life are just unexplained and that the important thing is the lesson learned in the journey. As we find out, he doesn't really have the disease but in order to appreciate his life, he needed to feel real sadness and anger because he had sort of buried all of his childhood memories that were perhaps holding him back.
At any rate, I wrote a review on it if you care to check it out...
bigwillthechamp.blogspot.com
posted by Michele (Mon Oct 05 09, 11:45AM)
If you enjoyed Henry Poole the first time around, I think you may enjoy the recently released family edition. I absolutely loved this movie! It was such a great story about a real life guy who was struggling with his faith and accepting it. This is something that I've been struggling with myself for the past couple of years. It was such an encouragement to see this played out. And it's really cool that I've found a site, http://www.henrypoolebelieves.com. Right now it looks like they are giving away 10 copies of the movie for free. If you haven't seen the movie yet, or even if you have, you could always give it to a friend, but it's definitely worth checking out!