The Book of Henry

Watts throws herself into the project, much like a first responder to an emergency.

A movie this crazy should be spellbinding, but as it is, The Book of Henry is just baffling. It's fun, but not fun; it's forgettable, but unforgettable.

Colin Trevorrow goes for the easy tears, which is too bad, in this case. Nothing about a story like this should feel easy.

"Sometimes a good story will remind you of who you want to be," says Henry. Someone watching a different movie?

A nervy, willfully preposterous study of motherhood and loss, "The Book of Henry" recklessly shifts between tones and genres, never predictably but rarely satisfyingly.

The plot combines child cancer death and pre-teen sexual abuse with such syrupy superficiality that it makes your teeth hurt.

Once The Book of Henry entertains the proposition of murder, everything changes and that pendulum begins to look like a scythe cutting wheat.

I do agree that things could've been handled with a little more subtlety, grace or tact...but even so, the end result was satisfying to me.

The truth is, while I don't think I can quite recommend the film, I appreciated its attempt to try something slightly insane, to take turns that most mainstream movies don't dare.

The few pleasures within The Book of Henry come from the ever-present feeling that at any moment something grandly idiotic could occur out of the blue. On this front the film absolutely delivers.