The Book of Henry  (2017)  PG-13  Runtime: 105 minutes

Genre: Drama-Mystery-Suspense-Thriller

els – 6.0/10

IMDb – 6.5/10

Amazon – 4.0/5 stars

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 4.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 3.5/5

Metacritic Metascore – 31/100

Metacritic User Score – 4.4/10

Directed by: Colin Trevorrow

Written by: Gregg Hurwitz

Produced by: Carla Hacken, Jenette Kahn, Sidney Kimmel, Adam Richman, et.al.

Music by: Michael Giacchino

Cast: Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher, Jacob Tremblay

Henry, Jaeden Lieberher, an adolescent genius, is unable to convince the adult world that there is a monster living next door. Running where the adults will not tread, he takes the only road available —until he can’t. Lieberher in Midnight Special was competent, but I simply loved him as Henry in this movie. He is fated for greatness if Hollywood doesn’t totally mess this kid up before he reaches adulthood.

The critics see this movie as a jumbled mess of genres, an excess of ideas smashing into one another, phony and boring, poorly written, directed, and acted: I saw an emotional and passionate presentation of difficult issues that took the movie in unexpected directions, a satisfactory finish, acted and directed superbly, with only the writing coming up short. The writing stumbles mainly with presenting a prodigy capable of doing anything and everything,  amazingly, and then developing, in the end, a rather pedestrian solution to a complicated problem.

Ignore the critics, ignore the written bumps in the road, and see this movie.  Bring a box of Kleenex.