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.
viewed at a semipublic screening with an audience of critics and ordinary moviegoers
rated PG for thematic elements and some language
official site | IMDB
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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