HENRY POOLE IS HERE

Sometimes, sappy really works. Or, it works on me, anyway.

That’s the case with this shamelessly maudlin but thoroughly enjoyable film about faith, hope, loneliness and connection.

Luke Wilson stars as the titular grouch, a man who gets some rather devastating news and decides to move into a kind of crappy house in the neighborhood where he grew up. All he wants is to be left alone, and to spend his days drinking heavily and downing frozen pizzas. Unfortunately – or fortunately – for him, two women enter his life and make that goal somewhat more difficult to achieve: neighborhood busybody Esperanza (Adriana Barraza), and comely single mother Dawn (Radha Mitchell), whose little daughter Millie (Morgan Lily) doesn’t speak but instead secretly tape records conversations.

Henry has barely unpacked his gloom when Esperanza excitedly informs him that a water stain on the side wall of his newly purchased home is, in her opinion, an image of Jesus Christ. Henry, a skeptic and annoyed homeowner, doesn’t buy it...but plenty of other people do, and soon his backyard grows into a mini religious shrine. Meanwhile, a budding relationship with Dawn starts to pull Henry out of his funk, and simultaneously forces him to examine his own beliefs about fate and destiny.

Essentially, this is a sweet four-character story about different people who need and want different things, but who are all united by a few common threads. They all want connection – to life, to love, to God, to another human being. They grapple with faith and they are all, in some way, alone...but they also all possess hope. Hope that life can get better. And those universal themes – who among us hasn’t experienced loneliness or clung to hope? – are woven through a story that is at times silly and, at other times, extremely moving.

The cast, eclectic though it may be, is perfect. Wilson’s natural amiability helps to give the otherwise gruff Henry a nice degree of warmth under the perpetual scowl, and Mitchell is simply radiant as the dream girl next door. I challenge you not to melt at Barraza’s heartbreaking performance – her monologue about being alone, and then finding bittersweet love late in life, had me bawling. And little Morgan Lily? Unbearably cute. Two supporting standouts, though, are Cheryl Hines (in an extended cameo as a perky-beyond-measure realtor) and Rachel Seiferth (as bespectacled grocery clerk Patience), both of whom add morsels of greatness to an already strong ensemble.

Henry Poole is Here is a small movie, but kind of a great one. It’s one of those little gems of a film, something you stumble into because The Dark Knight is sold out and you don’t want to leave the theatre, but something you find yourself loving unexpectedly. Yes, it’s fairly predictable, but no less poignant or effective if – like Henry – you’re willing to open yourself up to possibility.