The plot: Suburban kid Henry (Jaeden Lieberher) is a child
genius, often making contraptions with his brother Peter (Jacob Tremblay) and
balancing out his mother (Naomi Watts)’s budget. However, when he discovers
that his next-door neighbour Christina (Maddie Ziegler) is being abused by her
step-father (Dean Norris), he decides that something must be done. Something
that the adults seem unable to do because of the step-father’s standing in the
community. He decides that there’s only one choice: The step-father has to die.
Lieberher continues to prove himself as a highly capable
actor, balancing out his extreme precociousness with enough sincerity and
genuine heart to make his highly advanced creativity feel natural to the
character. Tremblay, another child actor who is only continuing to show his
skills in the acting craft, is an ideal fit alongside Lieberher, giving the
film a very solid emotional bedrock from which a lot of feels can spawn from.
Watts, to put it simply, comes across as the exact kind of mother who would
raise and have primary influence over kids this preternaturally aware of their
surroundings. I can’t explain why exactly seeing her playing Gears Of War at
certain points in the film filled me with such joy, but it certainly did that
and gave a good precursor for how warm her presence in the film would be.
Ziegler as Christina is quite heartbreaking to watch in form, as without a
whole lot of dialogue to her name, she gets across the very dehumanising
situation she is in to harrowing effect. Same goes for Dean Norris as her
step-father, who is just about as unsettling as a domestic abuser can get while
also not saying much. Sarah Silverman brings a rather bizarre presence to the
production, although one that has quite a bit of merit to it when put next to
the main cast, Lee Pace as a doctor works out well, and Tonya Pinkins as the
school principal… have to admit, her scene with Lieberher is incredibly
effective because how much they talk at the same level.
Along with his rather clear intellect and matured language,
the thing that makes Henry stick out is how protective he is of others. As he
goes through his opening voiceover narration, he talks about how compassion and
people looking out for each other is how the world should work. Later on, he
gets into how violence is far from the worst thing a person can do, and that
apathy is much worse. These are very adult ideas, both in concept and in their
eventual execution, but because Lieberher sells the dialogue as well as he
does, he makes them work when coming out of the mouth of a child.
From that
vantage point, he sees the abuse that goes on in his neighbourhood, the people
helping to cover it up, and the victim who is left to deal with everything
quietly. It carries a similar coda to Lieberher’s other big role from this year
with It, in that the story is about how society is so complacent with how bad
things are that it’s up to the next generation to, hopefully, put a stop to it.
And with the absolutely fantastic chemistry between him, Tremblay and Watts, we
also see what a functioning and loving household looks like, a heavy contrast
to the fearful environment that Henry wants to stop.
However, how that want to stop the abuse manifests itself is
very muddled. Like, to the point where this feels like two separate films
spliced together at the middle. Once we get into the titular Book, the film
takes a very sudden and jarring turn into something that the preceding hour
managed to avoid: It descends into complete silliness. For a time, the film
manages to juggle the fact that a child is having these very morbid and
idealistic views quite well, aided by the incredible acting. But once it gets
to implementing the plan, whatever sense of grounding we had before just
vanishes. This means I have to get into *SPOILERS*.
So, after Henry dies, it’s left to his mother to carry out his will… ugh. All
of a sudden, the very Biblical-sounding title makes way too much sense. This is
done through Henry leaving cassette tapes, notes and tightly-choreographed
plans concerning killing the abusive step-father. If this sounds like Henry just became a
Jigsaw apprentice, realise that we’re not even at the ridiculous part yet. So,
Henry instructs his mother on how to go about killing Sickleman, including
audio instructions on how to fire a sniper rifle where he ends up having
conversations with his mother and predicting what she is going to say while
listening to it. Henry goes from being incredibly clever into being a
near-literal creature of magic, which makes the resulting final reel
rather difficult to take seriously at face value.
All in all, this is just plain bizarre. It starts out on an
exceptionally strong footing, with the excellent actors really getting across
that not only are the events we’re seeing grounded in some form of reality, but
that that reality is one that needs to be commented on. Given the growing sense
of “it's up to the next generation to save us” I’ve been seeing out of Hollywood over the
last several months and the abusive
circles being unearthed in those same areas, it makes for a solid sentiment.
But then it really loses its steam and descends into true disbelief-stretching
that ends up making what should be a fulfilling climax land with a hollow thud.
I’ll admit to being surprised that director Colin Trevorrow, the man responsible
for the idiocy of Jurassic World, was able to make something that creates this
complex a reaction, but as ambitious as it is, the end result still doesn’t add
up. In any case, I’d still recommend checking it out, if only to see Jaeden
Lieberher, Jacob Tremblay and Naomi Watts act the unholy hell out of this
material.
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