I don't recall what prompted me to add
The Book of Henry (2017) to my Netflix list, but I'm not sorry I did, although it is a flawed, odd mix of domestic drama and thriller. Without going into spoiler details, the first half tugs at the heart strings and the second strains credulity but remains interesting. The story takes place in an idyllic community and focuses on a single mom of two adolescent boys, and the step-father and daughter next door. Naomi Watts lends her considerable talent to the lead role, and the ubiquitous Dean Evans is fine as the police chief neighbor, but the real stars are the kids: Jaeden Lieberher as the eponymous genius older brother, Jacob Tremblay as the younger, and Maddie Ziegler as the girl. Each has already logged considerable credits, the latter, a dancer, mostly on TV and in videos. Given the breadth of the scenario, I assumed it was an adaptation of a novel. Wrong - although it was the work of Gregg Hurwitz, who has written many best sellers as well as comics and TV scripts. Colin Trevorrow directed, his third stint at the helm of a big screen production. His previous movie was the wildly successful
Jurassic World (2015), so he will probably get another shot despite the financial failure of
The Book of Henry, which returned only $4 Million+ on a budget of $10 million in the USA. I was unable to find info on its international take. I'm surprised it flopped. It seems the type of fare many would eat up. Critics were unkind, which is not surprising. There is a lot wrong with the flick, but enough good stuff to make it enjoyable. It's heart is certainly in the right place. Although there are unpleasant issues at play, they are handled tastefully. 10,000+ users at IMDb have rated
The Book of Henry, forging to a consensus of 6.5 on a scale of ten. It runs 105 minutes. The title refers to something for his mom. Sarah Silverman is perfectly cast as a cynical goth-like friend/co-worker whose husband left her. Too bad this wonderfully talented woman is such a shrew politically. Here's a pic of the kids, Lieberher, Tremblay, Zieglar:
I've begun reading what I hope will be the final update to my latest book,
Present and Past. Through the first 65 pages I've spotted two errors, a missing period at the end of a one-sentence paragraph and a space between the last word of a sentence and the end quotation mark. I will not go back to the drawing board to correct just those. There would have to be more egregious mistakes for me to go through the process again.
It looked like all book sales would be in Russian today until a woman who had just purchased three in her first language noticed the classics I had on display, from which she selected J.D. Salinger's
The Catcher in the Rye, William Golding's
Lord of the Flies, and Arthur Miller's
Death of a Salesman. A moment later a middle age woman bought
The War of the World Murders by Max Allan Collins. My thanks, ladies, and to the couple that earlier bought two thrillers in Russian, and also to the elderly woman who selected a romance in her native tongue.
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