Luke
Wilson sleepwalks through the early stages of Mark Pellington's portentous
drama Henry Poole Is Here with a haunted, dead-eyed look he imagines sends the
message, "Leave me alone." Instead it cries out, "Save me." Playing a man with
a tragic, endlessly telegraphed secret, Wilson purchases an ugly house in a
non-descript neighborhood he hopes will serve as his Fortress Of Solitude, a
safe place to hide from a world he views with suspicion and distrust. Alas, he
has the misfortune of moving into the block that Hope built: all his neighbors
seem infinitely more invested in Wilson's happiness than Wilson himself, and it
isn't long until they've burst through his formidable defenses with their
religious faith, indefatigable optimism, and indie-film quirkiosity.
Cast yet
again as a soulful sad sack, Wilson plays a would-be recluse whose privacy is
severely compromised by a water stain on his house that neighbor Adriana
Barraza believes represents the magical, healing head of Jesus. Wilson rebuffs
both Barraza's theory and her offer of friendship and solidarity, but finds
himself drawn to his other impossibly friendly next-door neighbor, sexy
single-mother Radha Mitchell, and her spooky, tape-recorder obsessed daughter,
who has gone mute since her father abandoned her. Meanwhile, Wilson's house
becomes a popular attraction among true believers eager to experience its
healing power.
Henry
Poole cycles
through so many indie film clichés—the dour, depressed loner nursing a
dark secret, a motley group of outsiders that form an unlikely but loving
surrogate family, a welcoming circle of mourning, a touch of twee magic
realism, a tremblingly earnest alt-rock soundtrack—that it continually
skirts self-parody. Wilson travels an achingly familiar arc from drunken, sour
loneliness and alienation to healthy engagement with the outside world, but
this leaden, sluggishly paced film takes forever to get to its pre-determined
destination and boasts a tone that runs the gamut from mournful to sad to
melancholy. The Lord may work in mysterious ways, but the filmmakers behind
sensitive, life-affirming indie dramas about brooding young men stumbling
towards redemption are an awfully predictable lot.