Regarding Henry
Sometimes, even The A.V. Club isn’t impervious to the sexy allure of ostensible cultural garbage. Which is why there’s I Watched This On Purpose, our feature exploring the impulse to spend time with trashy-looking yet in some way irresistible entertainments, playing the long odds in hopes of a real reward. And a good time.
Cultural infamy: Regarding Henry isn’t so much infamous as ignored. Mike Nichols directed it. Harrison Ford and Annette Bening star in it. The screenplay is by a young writer named Jeffrey Abrams—later simply J.J. Abrams, the ubiquitous TV and movie force who created or played a major role in the creation of Alias, Felicity, Lost, and Cloverfield, and established his directorial bona fides with Mission: Impossible III and 2009’s Star Trek. Yet it’s usually remembered as the most gimmicky of a long, still ongoing string of yuppie redemption movies that started to pop up in the late ’80s, films in which overworked dads learn to reconnect with their neglected families. (See also: everything from Hook to this summer’s Marmaduke. Sometimes it seems like overworked dads needing to reconnect with their families are the only sorts of dads out there.) Reviews at the time weren’t particularly kind, either. In The New York Times, Vincent Canby offered the faintest of praise, calling it “a good deal more tolerable than any such gimmick movie has a right to be.” Roger Ebert found even less to like about “a film of obvious and shallow contrivance.”
Curiosity factor: But with that pedigree, how bad could it be? I haven’t seen all Mike Nichols’ movies, but I’ve seen enough to know I like them more often than not. And I tend to rate even his less-well-regarded films, like Primary Colors and Postcards From The Edge, higher than most of my fellow critics. (I have my limits, though. I’m not sure how What Planet Are You From? happened.) I’ve also been curious to discover whether there’s a moment in Harrison Ford’s career when you can actually see him stop trying. I assumed it had to fall somewhere between his intense, hunted performance in The Fugitive and his sleepy work as President Kickass in Air Force One, but maybe the signs were there earlier?
The viewing experience: Let’s get this out of the way first. (Nineteen-year-old spoilers follow…) Regarding Henry is the story of a fairly awful man who gets shot, loses his memory, turns childlike, and becomes an all-around better husband and father. It’s a film about redemption through brain damage. The implications of that are pretty staggering. Forget education, wit, sophisticated thinking, and higher reasoning: What the world needs now is for everyone’s brain to be deprived of oxygen just long enough for them to want to go out, eat a hot dog, and buy a puppy, as Ford does.