Here's the HD trailer... and one that looks like it reveals WAY TOO MUCH about this movie.

But it also looks like it will stir up some conversation about faith, although from the look of this trailer it appears to be rather superficial treatment of the subject, with more focus on the power of believing than on the existence of God.

Note: Director Mark Pellington is the same fellow who made U2 3D.

Really looking forward to checking out Pellington’s latest film Henry Poole Is Here starring Luke Wilson. It’s about a guy who abandons his fiancée and family business to spend what he believes are his remaining days alone. The discovery of a “miracle” by a nosy neighbor ruptures his solitude and restores his faith in life. It hits theaters on August 15th, and looks like it should be a pretty interesting dramedy. The theme song for the film can also be heard here, which was picked from a contest held by the film's director, Mark Pellington
myspace.com/henrypooleishere

CT Movies interviews director Mark Pellington.

I liked this film - for a whole variety of reasons. Here is my review.

I state in part:

Denny

Jeffrey (and everyone else on the board!), I just returned from seeing this film, and I highly commend it. It does have somewhat of a focus on the power of believing, but it also has some very real and raw moments dealing with the struggles of both religious faith and unbelief. It also has powerful themes of self-isolation and the redemptive power of reaching out to others. Luke Wilson's performance is one of the better ones that I've seen in this decade. His acting, as the "Henry" of the title, is dryly humorous and painfully poignant. It's a funny, comedic film in places, but overall, it's more of a slow and meditative work.

That has been one of the main criticisms I've heard of the film-- it's "slow," it's "boring." Well, what is slow and boring to some is thoughtful and moving to others. I think that many people on the board might well be in the latter camp, after seeing the movie.

It has also been criticized for its "Hallmark truisms." For atheists and "hard" agnostics, I can see the likelihood of such a view. However, if one believes in a God (or the possibility of a God) who resembles the God of the Bible, one might be more likely to see those "truisms" as truths-- and they aren't portrayed in the film in a way that makes me, personally, think of Hallmark cards. There are some silly moments, where people of faith behave in ways that aren't necessarily wise or mature, but there is also surprising depth, much more than I expected.

It does have its flaws. There are moments that stretch plausibility (as in "would anyone actually do or say that?"), but those moments are well worth sitting through, for the film's many greater, lasting virtues. At least, that's my take, after having seen it.

Oh, and contrary to one reviewer whom I read on Rotten Tomatoes, I loved the soundtrack, which features Eels, Bob Dylan, and Badly Drawn Boy, among others! Good songs, alternately melancholic and hopeful!

I really, terribly, wanted to like this film, but it is so crippled by the soundtrack, music video interludes, and lack of attention paid to character development.

I really like how it uses Jesus as a narrative device, and I can see myself referring to this film frequently in future conversations about hope and doubt. I appreciate the way Pellington shows Henry wrestling with this inexplicable presence in his backyard, and finishing the film with a Jacob wrestling the angel conflict. Henry's first physical contact with the face of Christ happens when he takes an axe to it, which is a very handy image of how some people struggle their way into and through faith. I have a keen interest in films that involve Jesus somehow even though they are not about him at all, and Henry Poole is a successful example of interacting with Jesus as a cultural icon. I puzzled a bit in my review about how to take the first person angles that happen when people are looking into the face of Christ, even here it is a pretty cloying device, but seems to indicate what Pellington had in mind when thinking about "Jesus" in this film.

Lots of directions for conversation offered by Henry.

Mleary, nice takes... and the expnded version there at the blog. nourishing and welcomingly reflective ty.

Regarding the puzzling first person angles u bring up, thats a great point...while it is a salient device.. i think that theres some leeway for this direction as it seems somehow inevitable. And what better way to get a sense of the encounter itself, the numinous aspect so to speak...and get there so readily by this choice of "framing" within the very sight-line of the observer and the observed...seeing along rather than seeing at... On this distinction im standing on the shoulders here of CS Lewis's remarkable thoughts in the toolshed here, concerning his observations on one mote of light entering therein and applied in his art with his Lucy seeing analogously within a beam of light as she does in Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

So one direction of discussion could certainly be about Vision ... that and perhaps a big nod to the fav. Wittgenstein's duck/rabbit picture here and how he distinguishes 'seeing that versus seeing as' as here ....that interplay (or is it stages?) that for some is a struggle and finally seen through becomes vision. ( at times like this i wish i could write like some of the stalwarts here on the boards as i think they'd get it better or at the very least allude to that which holy fools, poets, artists and small children so readily tap into , witness and refreshingly testify of.)

On another note and perhaps related.. the character of Millie , here my thoughts alighted back not just to C.S. Lewis's Lucy but even onward to del Torro's Ofelia...each youth saw (beheld) and carried throughout the content of their sight, even when others can't. They see and even more, they trust and are obedient to their sight , perhaps the deep Mystery and appeal of this, here in Millie's case, is that likewise she doesn't see it as 'theirs' to covet they simply "just do"... Inspiring. Similar too and resonant much like Mary there in the garden, as u state in that great essay there on ur blog, titled Advent and Aesthetics. Could this film refract this very same light, and rather than alloting it to just one female protagonist, disperses it amongst the feminine characters of Hope, Patience, Dawn and her daughter Millie. I myself, welcomed this reminder of the feminine rather than the rather obvious allusions given by their names...for it seems the feminine always bears the message and so moves the plot like some great hinge on a door, and much like the Story with her own fiat or there with another Mary in the garden of St. John's gospel as u meditated upon in your essay. The storied-ness of each of these, if i might apply ur phrase... is welcome to see here again in Henry Poole as it was earlier this summer in the case of Eve ( and her encasing) there in the recent Wall-E.

True while not high art nor as luxurious in mystery as the sculpted time of Tarkovsky, or as sumptious to the eye/heart ratio that resonates so amidst the primordial forests or "fields of gold" that have been so poeticly glassed in Malick's cinematic frames ... this film has at the least a finger print of some similar trace, a remnant of something similar.. something thats right and true and even noble. Yes it stumbles here and there , but much like the stations that are part of the tradition of my faith, which at times comes so easy and at others offers challenge, i guess in the reaction to the stumble, there's meaning to be found.

Of late and do help me out anyone if im mistaken, i cant think of a big little film as this that seems to pivot so on the theme of seeing>vision, one that actually harkens back onto and then into the somewhat antiquated word: "beholding"( in the sense that listening is to hearing), partly because i think this word is taken for granted ...this film does seem to touch on that and therefore has some unique merit. I would welcome any recommendations from members who know of other films that share any similarity or might carry this same velocity. As an imaged encounter, the film for me at least, is welcomingly refreshing in the challenge to our intelligence to cite John Paul II writing on another similar event (par. 2) as here.. Because of this i bear with the mtv moments...and found the films rather indirect forays into iconoclasm and belief appealing... for its posing a question at least , and seing a response much like the tradition of Veronicas veil and that Holy Face, which seems to be a distant echo to this work, and that "according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the name "Veronica" is a colloquial portmanteau of the Latin word Vera, meaning truth, and Greek Icon meaning "image"; " to quote wikepedia. And in itself acting as a sign of contradiction to the likes of Henry Poole and his axe that u so adeptly point out, a sign indeed spoken against and confounding to even him ... all while to the humble, the elderly, and the little ones (i.e. the simple, depending on the translation preferred) each give pause to look upon, to an image and receive it. The axis of this Image..and its centrifuge, both eternal and entire, that draws one and once taken in is beheld. I cant think of another film right now that touches in such a direct manner the reciprocal fashion of this "face to face encounter (2 Cor. 3:18) that St. Paul speaks of...and where again for me at least, as alluded to by the first person angles,,, a heart is wounded (Canticle 4:9) in the deepest sense and where as in scripture in "his eyes (or presence) a becoming starts,,,,and one is changed anew to find peace. (cf Canticle 8:10). For that i think its my big little film of the summer and so welcome.

Wow, I had never read this before and it is an excellent way to think about those shots. It is such a cliched device, and I think it is even cheesy in Henry Poole , but it is such a great idea that could have panned out profoundly if done perhaps in a different way. "The answer is that we must never allow the rot to begin. We must, on pain of idiocy, deny from the very outset the idea that looking at is, by its own nature, intrinsically truer or better than looking along. One must look both along and at everything." What a cool little essay. The last time I can think of similar shots actually working in a film are those of Code Unknown and Funny Games, but those are embedded in notions of insecurity and moral participation.



Huh. I had not even caught that in the film, and it is provocative. If this film had been done better, then all these possible allusions would be so much more effective and engaging. I have a hard time with films that drop in little ironic situations or character details to add depth where there really isn't any, and Millie's tape recorder struck me as on of these details. But there was something unsettling about hearing these conversations over again, in a "woman at the well" way ("come see a man who told me everything I ever did"). While, as you say, their names are a bit over the top, there is a nice pattern of response to the Jesus-stain that is evocative of things we see in the gospels. And, of course, the tape recorder is a cheesy way to move along the plot, but done differently it could have been thought provoking. She does move the plot along by testifying to the character's own true needs, spoken back to them under the gaze of the stain.



Absolutely, I can't think of a another film this bad that has made me think so much. I love all the ideas in the film, but it could have been done so differently.



I concur, I am trying to think of similar films, but am having a hard time. These would be films that teach me how to see things in a believing way, or train me in "beholding." The one that has really stuck with me over time is Heaven, and very specifically the end of Heaven. It is hard to determine why the film has this name until you see the last few frames, which I don't want to spoil. But what happens there is a wordless ascension, an exit that is only beheld by the audience and otherwise unexplained by any narrative or visual clues. There is a lot of "beholding" that happens in Stan Brakhage and Tarkovsky, but I can't think of films that make specific links between similar visual cues and theological ideas.