Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) has just bought a house on the street he grew up on. He doesn’t want the yard tidied up, he doesn’t want the painting redone, he doesn’t want the stucco fixed. He just wants to take ownership, throw a bed in a room, heat up a frozen pizza and drink a bottle of wine. Maintenance and upkeep just aren’t that important to the man. After all, it’s not like he’s going to be here very long, anyway.

Luke Wilson and Rachel Seiferth in Overture Films' Henry Poole is Here

Maybe, but after his kind-hearted (if a bit nosy) neighbor Esperanza (Adriana Barraza) thinks she spies the face of God in a paint stain on the side of the man’s house peace and quiet is the last thing Henry can hope for. Next thing he knows, the mute daughter of the sexy single mom, Dawn (Radha Mitchell), next door starts talking and the worldly nearly blind teenage grocery store checkout clerk Patience (Rachel Seiferth) can suddenly see without her glasses.

From that snippet of a synopsis, it probably goes without saying that the new drama from director Mark Pellington (Arlington Road) Henry Poole is Here is about the power of faith. Is that stain a sign from God? Is a divine signal that those who believe will be saved no matter what their ailment? Or is it nothing more than just an unusual mistake, the images contained within nothing more than bizarre figments of fevered imaginations of those whom look upon it?

I must admit, for a good hour or so these questions actually had me more or less infatuated. I was curious where the director and novice screenwriter Albert Torres were going to take all of this, eager to see which path the depressive main character facing some terrible personal demons was going to choose. It was almost as if Frank Capra, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger and Wes Anderson all magically got together and poured their respective talents into one weirdly unique melodrama, and for a film that had garnered such blasé buzz out of Sundance this had me so enthralled I started to wonder why.

After the final act concluded and I sat their staring at the screen more than a bit dumfounded, I suddenly understood those less than enthusiastic reactions. With a striking uncomfortable suddenness this subtle, poignant and delicately funny movie started turning sour and didactic. Worse, it became preachy, but the sermon it was delivering was so shockingly unfocused all it did was contradict 90-percent of all the themes delivered during the first two acts.

The actors all do their best. Babel Oscar-nominee Barraza is the clear standout, every time she shows up in a scene I couldn’t help but smile as I sat up straight to take note of her. But she’s not the only standout, Wilson, Mitchell (definitely making up for a slew of recent lackluster performances), Seiferth, George Lopez (as a flippant local priest) and Cheryl Hines (having a field day as Henry’s acid-tongued realtor) all delivering endearing and complicated portraits even as the script suddenly deserts them.

I don’t really know why, but for some reason watching Henry Poole in action made me think of a completely different Henry, this one found in idiosyncratic director Hal Hartley’s 1998 classic Henry Fool. Both a bit narcissistic and selfish, both finding something akin to redemption in the form of a near love affair with a fragile woman unsure of the hand life has dealt her. The difference is that Pellington is no Hartley, and while one director had the conviction to take his characters to their brutally, almost unforgivable, nihilistic conclusions the other just doesn’t quite have the guts to do something even close to the same. 

Pity, because for over half of the picture I was ready to raise my hands and praise the heavens for Henry Poole is Here. But what started out as sharp, funny, emotional and cuttingly poignant quickly dissolved into an unfocused muddle uncertain of its own themes. In short, it doesn’t have any faith, and for a film trying to talk about the ups, downs and mysterious in-betweens about that very subject this might just be the biggest sin of them all.

Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)

Additional Links

-  Henry Poole is Here Theatrical Trailer