SPOILER ALERT (I reveal all the major plot points so don't read this if you haven't seen the film)
I went to this film particularly from watching the trailer which had some promise but also some worries to what was the 'plot'. The trailer gave me the impression that a unusually smart child is trying to save 'the girl next door' from abuse (potential murder?) from her step dad and somehow the smart kid's mom is showed with a high powered sniper's rifle like she is going to kill him.
The film's first half is fun and pretty dramatic with the medical fate of our lead character. Very moving. I didn't expect that level of sadness. I had to literally ask both of my guests if the lead character really just died half way through the film!
But then the film takes a ridiculous turn: Henry leaves a book behind (hence the title) with a plot to assassinate the stepdad and instructions for his mom to carry it out (now that he learns of his own terminal illness).
The second problem is Henry's reasons (and his mother's belief in these reasons) for why the murder of the stepdad by his own mother is the only option. IMDb user stevepat99 is right when he says that the plan is full of holes and puts the mom in serious danger of prosecution and that being a "genius" Henry could have found a way to entrap the stepdad instead of having his naive mother (who Henry doesn't trust to balance her own checking account and having no criminal background or experience with guns) commit murder.
And he is also right about the confrontation scene with the stepdad and the Henry's mother in the dark, woods. She harshly threatens him, to his face, to take him down. She stand there with no protection or backup and purposefully leaves the gun behind her! Now he walks away, but we learn in the end, (when he kills himself) that he's a bully and a coward so of course that's why he didn't harm her.
But then the Principal turns him in to the authorities the same night just because she saw 'something' in the victim's school talent show dance performance that now makes her believe she truly is a victim (even after multiple attempts by Henry to have the Principal report the abuse). My guess is that she talked to the victim after her moment of 'dance routine sadness moment of clarity' and got the victim to confess finally, but SHOW that or indicate it in an explanation in the film.
And then there's the fact that we never see the abuse. Although, they cut to the mother's face at one point and the look of horror on it indicates to us that something bad is happening or about to... (she subsequently interrupts it by calling the stepdad at the moment). Even an artsy, shadowy fight scene or some other visual indicator to leave us with a definite impression of what is happening to the young girl. The film lead me, at points, in the first half, to wonder if Henry is wrong about the Stepdad and maybe there is a 'twist ending', which there really isn't.
And why does the mother burn Henry's book at the end? She could just remove the 'assassination plot' pages, but keep all the other wonderful things he drew. Or at least show her removing the good pages before burning the bad.
Anyways, I felt insulted, unfilled and emotionally flat at the end of this movie that I wished had ended at Henry's death scene. It would still be an unfulfilled movie but at least it would have ended on powerful emotion.
I went to this film particularly from watching the trailer which had some promise but also some worries to what was the 'plot'. The trailer gave me the impression that a unusually smart child is trying to save 'the girl next door' from abuse (potential murder?) from her step dad and somehow the smart kid's mom is showed with a high powered sniper's rifle like she is going to kill him.
The film's first half is fun and pretty dramatic with the medical fate of our lead character. Very moving. I didn't expect that level of sadness. I had to literally ask both of my guests if the lead character really just died half way through the film!
But then the film takes a ridiculous turn: Henry leaves a book behind (hence the title) with a plot to assassinate the stepdad and instructions for his mom to carry it out (now that he learns of his own terminal illness).
The second problem is Henry's reasons (and his mother's belief in these reasons) for why the murder of the stepdad by his own mother is the only option. IMDb user stevepat99 is right when he says that the plan is full of holes and puts the mom in serious danger of prosecution and that being a "genius" Henry could have found a way to entrap the stepdad instead of having his naive mother (who Henry doesn't trust to balance her own checking account and having no criminal background or experience with guns) commit murder.
And he is also right about the confrontation scene with the stepdad and the Henry's mother in the dark, woods. She harshly threatens him, to his face, to take him down. She stand there with no protection or backup and purposefully leaves the gun behind her! Now he walks away, but we learn in the end, (when he kills himself) that he's a bully and a coward so of course that's why he didn't harm her.
But then the Principal turns him in to the authorities the same night just because she saw 'something' in the victim's school talent show dance performance that now makes her believe she truly is a victim (even after multiple attempts by Henry to have the Principal report the abuse). My guess is that she talked to the victim after her moment of 'dance routine sadness moment of clarity' and got the victim to confess finally, but SHOW that or indicate it in an explanation in the film.
And then there's the fact that we never see the abuse. Although, they cut to the mother's face at one point and the look of horror on it indicates to us that something bad is happening or about to... (she subsequently interrupts it by calling the stepdad at the moment). Even an artsy, shadowy fight scene or some other visual indicator to leave us with a definite impression of what is happening to the young girl. The film lead me, at points, in the first half, to wonder if Henry is wrong about the Stepdad and maybe there is a 'twist ending', which there really isn't.
And why does the mother burn Henry's book at the end? She could just remove the 'assassination plot' pages, but keep all the other wonderful things he drew. Or at least show her removing the good pages before burning the bad.
Anyways, I felt insulted, unfilled and emotionally flat at the end of this movie that I wished had ended at Henry's death scene. It would still be an unfulfilled movie but at least it would have ended on powerful emotion.