by Frank Calvillo
Box Office Alternative Column
Box Office Alternative is a weekly look into additional/optional choices to the big-budget spectacle opening up at your local movie theater every Friday. Oftentimes, titles will consist of little-known or underappreciated work from the same actor/writer/director/producer of said new release, while at other times, the selection for the week just happens to touch upon the same subject in a unique way. Above all, this is a place to revisit and/or discover forgotten cinematic gems of all kinds.
Faith-based films are all the rage right now, as evidenced by the runaway success of last year’s Heaven is for Real and the similarly-poised Miracles from Heaven, opening this Friday. While films of this nature have proven to be moneymakers at the box office, they’re certainly not without their detractors who have been very vocal about religious individuals using Hollywood as a platform with which to preach their views on Christianity in such a highly visible way.
One instance where those critics stayed fairly quiet with regard to a film dealing primarily with the question of faith was release of the 2008 indie Luke Wilson-starrer Henry Poole is Here.
In Henry Poole is Here, Wilson stars as the titular Henry, a depressed man who has just bought a run-down home in a California suburb, where he spends his days eating nothing but junk food and consuming large amounts of alcohol. When a water stain from a sub-par stucco paint job on the side of the house results in his next door neighbor Esperanza (Adriana Barraza) making out the face of God, the cynical Henry brushes her away. Yet when Esperanza alerts her priest Father Salazar (George Lopez), and fellow neighbor Dawn (Radha Mitchell) and mute daughter Millie (Morgan Lily), as well as most of the neighborhood, Henry is forced to put his depressive state aside as he frantically insists that God has not chosen his house to visit.
Director Mark Pellington and writer Albert Torres certainly knew the careful line they were straddling between feeling like a Sunday school lesson and telling a story about a person’s relationship with faith. It would have been so easy for the two to preach the gospel for 95 minutes, and yet they never do. In fact, what’s most interesting about Henry Poole is Here is how it handles the subject of faith. There are no sermons, no biblical quotes, but rather there is the simple championing of the idea of belief. And for some, the notion of simple belief, without the attachment of any one religion, may be harder to accept than a collection of bible passages. The film’s genius is how it brilliantly reaffirms the notion that the ability to believe is something purely inherent. As Patience (Rachel Seiferth), a local grocery store cashier, tells Henry,: “Not everything needs an explanation. Sometimes things happen because we choose for them to. I choose to believe.” That, in a nutshell, is the film’s message. Belief. Plain and simple.
It should be pointed out that with all the hoopla surrounding the supposed image on Henry’s wall, the plight of the main character is never once sidestepped. Throughout the course of the film, we find ourselves more and more taken by Henry and what drove him to his current state, one which has him continuously saying, “I won’t be living here long,” to all he encounters. This is a film about a damaged person finding his way after being lost for so long, but more than that, finding a reason to actually exist. A visit to his childhood home and a letting down of his guard, which ends up backfiring, sends Henry to an even darker place than he’s been in before. Yet as he’s reminded by Esperanza, “Sometimes you have to be sad to remind yourself that you’re alive.”
Wilson has never been better onscreen than he is here. As Henry, the actor is given such a rich character which brilliantly showcases an extremely underutilized dramatic ability. It’s a tricky role for sure, one which sees Wilson balance sad melancholy with endless frustration to great result. He’s so well-matched by Barraza, who radiates endless faith and an unwavering belief as the film’s most enchanting and dynamic character. Mitchell is lovely as the female lead (even if her character’s function offers no surprises), while Lily is touching, Seiferth is a joy, and Lopez surprises in a role which seems more toned down than some of his previous work.
Henry Poole is Here received several positive reviews for a film dabbling in faith and depression upon its Sundance premiere, with Roger Ebert especially applauding the film’s handling of its delicate subjects. Yet in spite of the acclaim, there didn’t seem to be much of a market for a film of its kind, as evidenced by the low-key reception that greeted Henry Poole is Here upon its late summer release and its subsequent shuffling off into virtual obscurity.
Naturally there were a handful of critics who lambasted the film for its preachiness. Yet for me, it’s those individuals who failed to grasp what Henry Poole is Here was truly about. The film doesn’t insist that life will be nothing short of grand should you choose believe in any particular God, but rather that a belief in each other and in life itself is what makes life as valuable as it is. As Esperanza so wisely states, “All that any of us have is right now, and we should pay attention to that.”
