The Book of Henry

Do not listen to any other reviews for this movie, just this one of course.  ‘The Book of Henry’ has gotten some bad reviews, but they are not deserved.  I think this is one time where being a teacher comes in handy because the way the story plays out definitely had me rooting for the whole thing to work out well.  This is the story of a boy named Henry (played convincingly by Jaeden Carpenter) who is super-smart.  He is in a regular school rather than one for exceptional students so that he can socialize and interact with people.  He protects his little brother. And his intellectual capacity is very wide. In fact, he even runs the family finances, and has invested  his mother’s (played by Naomi Watts) waitress salary so that she has enough money in the bank to never have to work (even if she doesn’t want to think about it). Henry discovers that the sweet little girl next door, Christina, is being molested by her step-father.  Henry tries everything he can think of to get help for her and even tells the principal and calls protective services.  None of his ideas work, mainly because the poor girl’s step father is the police commissioner  and he is just a kid.  As a last resort, Henry comes up with an elaborate, and apparently fool-proof solution — Christina’s stepfather must be killed!  The problem is, despite being a genius, he is still a kid and can’t get a gun.  But then, a medical condition brings about a big change, and his mom is going to have to get involved. What will they do? (no SPOILERS!)  How the whole thing plays out is very far-fetched, yet I found the ending satisfying.  If you go, bring Kleenex; this is definitely NOT a lighthearted movie.  Teachers out there will be particularly interested in seeing how the school handles this problem.  Could they have done better?  What would you have done?   A movie that demands you think about hard issues, is a movie worth seeing.