Nine-year-old Verlin (Keegan MacIntosh) is mute and barely reacts to anything. His uncle Henry (Gary Farmer) is a simple-minded, barely-verbal man who is mistrusted by most of the community. To the surprise of their family, Henry and Verlin form a close bond. Henry introduces Verlin to his friend Mabel (Margot Kidder), a one-legged Hooker with a Heart of Gold. For the first time since he was a baby, Verlin begins to smile and laugh and show interest in his surroundings. But his parents, Ferris (Robert Joy) and Minnie (Nancy Beatty), want to think that Verlin's displays of emotions are for them and worry that Henry is hurting Verlin.
Henry and Verlin contains examples of:
- Angst Coma: Verlin falls into one after Henry is institutionalized. He falls asleep and doesn't wake up until he hears Henry's voice.
- Career-Ending Injury: Most of Mabel's clients lost interest in her after she lost her leg.
- Commonality Connection: It's implied that Verlin inherited Henry's disability, or a very similar one.
- Fat Idiot: Henry.
- First Friend: Verlin is unable to connect with anyone at all before he befriends Henry.
- Groin Attack: Played for Drama. When two men beat up Henry while he's hanging out by the creek, one of them kicks his crotch.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: The credits play over a shot of Henry and Verlin walking away from the camera through a field to Verlin's parents' car, where the reunited family drives away together.
- Pædo Hunt: Some people suspect Henry and Mabel of sexually abusing Verlin.
- The Patient Has Left the Building: Henry and Verlin break out of the mental institution where they've both been placed.
- Platonic Prostitution: Henry goes to Mabel for foot massages.
- Ransacked Room: Mabel finds her home ransacked by local busybodies.
- Soft Glass: When Verlin helps Henry escape from Cove Sanatorium, he easily breaks a pane of glass with one bare hand. A minute later, Elvin breaks another pane with his shoe.
- The Speechless: Verlin. Before he meets Henry, he never makes any vocal noises at all; afterwards, he sometimes laughs or screams.
- Title Drop: Minnie says, "Ferris, let's just go bring them home. Henry and Verlin."
- Title In: Opeongo County, Population 531, 1935
