Since the theme for this month is art, I was going to review a wonderful film called The Fall. However, I recently saw another wonderful film called Henry Poole Is Here. It doesn’t have near the artistic elements that The Fall has, but it’s a movie that everyone should see.
Henry Poole Is Here is directed by Mark Pellington, whose largest previous work is The Mothman Prophecies, a very entertaining film. Luke Wilson plays the main character (Henry Poole, of course). When the film opens, Henry has been diagnosed with some unknown disease and only has weeks to live. He decides to move into a new house, load up on alcohol, pizza, and donuts, and basically die alone. His attempt to buy his childhood home fails, so he settles for a beat-up old blue house down the street. He then proceeds with the rest of his to-do list. The house, however, has recently been re-stuccoed, and a strange water stain appears on the wall. Henry’s excitable neighbor believes the stain to resemble the face of Christ and deems it a miracle. His attempts to be alone are soon interrupted by visits from the woman’s minister (played by George Lopez) and, in the words of Henry Poole, “every holy-roller within a hundred mile radius.”
Amidst all this external turmoil, Henry experiences inner change through his relationship with his other neighbor, Dawn. The lonely and resigned-to-death Henry that we knew at the beginning of the film now experiences a reason to live and becomes angry at the God who’s shown up on the side of his house. This anger leads to an extremely dramatic climax.
Everything about the film is nearly perfect. The cinematography is surprisingly beautiful, the acting is amazing, and the music is superb. In fact, several of the scenes play like music videos, which just serves to add to the emotion. The themes of redemption and hope, however, are what take the movie from mediocre to very good. It’s the closest job I’ve seen of not only making the audience empathize with the character, but also letting them see a bit of themselves in him. This makes his conflict personal and extremely moving.
The bottom line for this movie is that you need to see it. Nowhere have I seen a film with so many Christian parallels, and most of the people working on the film weren’t even Christians. Henry’s inner struggles and transformations mirror the life of anyone who has experienced God’s grace. Miracles can happen; and when they do, they serve the purpose of changing individuals.
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