History Film / TheBookOfHenry

* SimpleSolutionWontWork: When the Carpenter family notice that the little girl who lives next door is abused by her stepfather, they do try to contact Child Services first, but their complaints fall on deaf ears (the head of the local office is the brother of the stepfather and buys the man's excuses, contacting the Child Services office of another town only leads to the Carpenters being told that they are in a different jurisdiction, the stepfather is the chief of police so calling the cops is out, and Henry telling the principal of his school to file the complaint is only met with extreme reluctance by the principal). This leads to Henry deciding that MurderIsTheBestSolution and making his plan in a notebook (the titular book), which [[TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat has extensive notes explaining to his mother why it's the only option that will work, when she questions it as she's reading the book.]] [[spoiler:Notably, the "simple solution" technically does works, but only when the principal [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone finally gets over her reluctance]] and contacts Child Services [[NonProtagonistResolver completely independently of the Carpenters' actions]] at the climax.]]

* AmbiguousTimePeriod: It's not clear when the movie is supposed to be set. Gregg Hurwitz claims to have worked on this script for several decades which might explains how the movie feels like it's both set in the early '90s and late 2010s at the same time. Henry uses a polaroid camera, records himself on tapes, and uses public phones to make calls, but at the same time cell phones and modern video game consoles are also clearly seen.

* UefulNotes/NewYorkState: Set and filmed in the Hudson Valley.

* NewYorkState: Set and filmed in the Hudson Valley.

* AmbiguousTimePeriod: It's not clear when the movie is supposed to be set. Gregg Hurwitz claims to have worked on this script for several decades which might explains how the movie feels like it's both set in the early 90s and late 2010s at the same time. Henry uses a polaroid camera, records himself on tapes, and uses public phones to make calls, but at the same time cell phones and modern video game consoles are also clearly seen.

''The Book of Henry'' is a 2017 drama film directed by Creator/ColinTrevorrow.

Henry Carpenter (Creator/JaedenLieberher) is an eleven year-old [[ChildProdigy boy genius]], living with and managing the finances of his mother Susan (Creator/NaomiWatts) and his younger brother Peter (Creator/JacobTremblay). Becoming suspicious of the next door neighbor Glenn (Creator/DeanNorris), Henry discovers that his classmate Christina (Creator/MaddieZiegler) is being abused by her stepfather. Impeded at every legal avenue, Henry hatches a plan to rescue Christina and punish his neighbor, but circumstances emerge to result in his inexperienced mother having to carry out the plot.

** The family is supposed to have money problems Henry is trying to fix/actually fixing with his stock market trading, such that Susan must work as a waitress rather than focus on her passion of being a children's book writer, but they live in a nice house, ''can'' afford a new car but choose not to buy one, and [[spoiler: Susan does not worry at ''all'' over the cost of Henry's brain surgery, even though a waitress would not have health insurance good enough to cover that, assuming she had it all.]]

** The school principal refuses to act on Henry's claim that Christina is abused at home, claiming she needs some kind of further proof. School officials are ''required'' to report all ''suspicion'' of child abuse to authorities. It is not within their responsibility or authority to try to assess their credibility.

** [[spoiler:The two biggest flaws is that Henry's plan hinges on Glenn going out into the woods in the middle of the night to investigate a random noise he hears from inside his house, during a very narrow time window. The plan utterly fails if Glenn does ''anything'' that keeps him from doing that, like sleeping, taking a shower, watching a movie, cooking dinner, or just not being home. And keep in mind that from Glenn's point of view, this is an evening he has to himself, as his daughter is going to be away for most of it, so the plan hinges on Glenn literally not doing anything with his free evening. The second biggest flaw is that the plan revolves into Glenn's body falling into a creek that seems to be maybe 2 feet deep at most and that creek sweeping the body away so no one ever can find out where Glenn died.[[

** [[spoiler:The two biggest flaws is that Henry's plan hinges on Glenn going out into the woods in the middle of the night to investigate a random noise he hears from inside his house, during a very narrow time window. The plan utterly fails if Glenn does ''anything'' that keeps him from doing that, like sleeping, taking a shower, watching a movie, cooking dinner, or just not being home. And keep in mind that from Glenn's point of view, this is an evening he has to himself, as his daughter is going to be away for most of it, so the plan hinges on Glenn literally not doing anything with his free evening. The second biggest flaw is that the plan revolves into Glenn's body falling into a creek that seems to be maybe 2 feet deep at most and that creek sweeping the body away so no one ever can find out where Glenn died.

** The two biggest flaws is that Henry's plan hinges on Glenngoing out into the woods in the middle of the night to investigate a random noise he hears from inside his house, during a very narrow time window. The plan utterly fails if Glenn does ''anything'' that keeps him from doing that, like be asleep, taking a shower, watching a movie, be cooking, or just not be at home. And keep in mind that from Glenn’s point of view, this is an evening he's got free as his daughter's going to be out for most of it, so the plan hinges on Glenn literally not doing anything out of his free evening. The second biggest flaw is that the plan revolves into Glenn’s body falling into a creek that seems to be maybe 2 feet deep at most and that creek sweeping the body away so no one ever can find out where Glenn died.
* GameChanger: Halfway through the film, [[spoiler:Henry develops a malignant brain tumor and dies.]]

* NonAnswer: During a trip to the grocery store Henry sees a man beating his girlfriend. He wants to get involved but Susan tells him not to. Later that night Henry is lamenting to Susan that they should have done something. When Susan asks Henry what he wanted them to do to help Henry dodges the question, instead going into a speech about how Apathy is worse than violence.

** The two biggest flaws is that Henry's plan hinges on Glen going out into the woods in the middle of the night to investigate a random noise he hears from inside his house, during a very narrow time window. The plan utterly fails if Glen does ''anything'' that keeps him from doing that, like be asleep, taking a shower, watching a movie, be cooking, or just not be at home. And keep in mind that from Glen's point of view, this is an evening he's got free as his daughter's going to be out for most of it, so the plan hinges on Glen literally not doing anything out of his free evening. The second biggest flaw is that the plan revolves into Glen's body falling into a creek that seems to be maybe 2 feet deep at most and that creek sweeping the body away so no one ever can find out where Glen died.

* LecherousStepparent: The plot of the film, as it were, to centers around a plot to kill Glen Sickleman in order to save his step daughter from being abused, presumably sexually. When someone refers to him as her father at one point, she very pointedly corrects that person and calls him her step father.

* ShaggyDogStory: [[spoiler:Since Susan ends up not killing Glen and the Principal ends up reporting Glen's abuse, causing him to commit suicide, it ultimately means all of Henry's planning was for the most part completely pointless.]]

* Knight of Cerebus: While the film starts off as a light-hearted family drama about a genius kid living with his childish mother, the tone quickly drops into tragedy and suspense when it is revealed that [[spoiler: Henry's Neighbor and antagonist of the film, Glenn, has been horribly abusing his step-daughter. Glenn's crimes shape the rest of the film's plot, with Henry choosing to devote the remainder of his life to killing Glenn, as there is no practical way to legally bring him to justice.]] A far cry from what the up-beat posters and cheery opening sequence implied.

Henry Carpenter (Creator/JaedenLieberher) is an eleven year-old [[ChildProdigy boy genius]], living with and managing the finances of his mother Susan (Creator/NaomiWatts) and his younger brother Peter (Creator/JacobTremblay). Becoming suspicious of the next door neighbor Glenn (Creator/DeanNorris), Henry discovers that his classmate Christina (Maddie Ziegler) is being abused by her stepfather. Impeded at every legal avenue, Henry hatches a plan to rescue Christina and punish his neighbor, but circumstances emerge to result in his inexperienced mother having to carry out the plot.

** The movie tries to end with this idea that [[spoiler:even though Henry died he improved the lives of others...except the last act of the film involves Susan learning to disregard Henry because he's a child and Glenn ends up dying through something Henry had no factor in. Meaning that aside from the adoption papers Henry forged Christina ends up being adopted by the Carpenters by pure chance!]]

* MoodWhiplash: A frequent criticism of the film is that it suffers from this. At first glance, it seems like a whimsical family film, and it tries to pass itself off like that at points, but the plot deals with the very big issue of Child Abuse and has Henry's way of solving the issue being murder, not to mention [[spoiler:Henry a child dies halfway through the film.]]