The Book of Henry

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Never leave anything unpodcasted! Great! Hello everybody Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do

[00:00:30] It's time for an emergency episode of Blank Check with Griffin and David My name is Griffin Newman I'm David Sims, Red Alert Emergency episode We've got the red mood lighting We're recording right now in a studio where we only have red lights turned on

[00:00:47] Dark, dark, moody led lights It either looks like an emergency situation, so I said, we're all gonna fuck each other Yeah, we're in the, this is Crimson Tide 2 It does feel like it I'm Gene Hackman I'm Denzel Washington with us as always is producer Tony Scott

[00:01:02] aka producer Tony Scott Okay, emergency episode Red Alert, Red Alert We know everyone's been waiting for our Christopher Nolan miniseries Well you're gonna have to keep waiting! One more week The pod night will cast but not for another week

[00:01:19] What if every week there's a movie as crazy as this movie so we just keep having it Look, look, we know you wanna hear the Nolan We've recorded it six years ago But we just have to talk about whatever Can I make you promise right now? Yeah

[00:01:31] If every week there's a movie as crazy as this one I will murder myself Great Oh god Hey, don't do that Alright anyway If every week there's a movie as crazy as this I will leave detailed instructions for how you should murder me That's what I will do

[00:01:45] On the record On the record Okay so emergency episode A movie has come out this week Uh, quietly Yeah, pretty quietly It tried to just sneak past everyone Correct But anyone who saw it can't stop talking about it Yes, i.e. 14 people can't stop talking about it

[00:02:04] Yeah, and some way that ties into certain themes that have been going on with our show Uh huh It's very much a blank check movie Uh huh It's directed by a man who I've often encouraged our listeners to Punch in the penis Attack Yes To injure And also

[00:02:20] Also this man is next going to make a phantom menace movie He's slated to make the ninth phantom menace movie He's going to direct a star war And so there are overlaps here Now this is not a bad movie podcast

[00:02:33] It's not like we're just going to any time a stinker comes out Team up to rag on Right, and I want to make that click Cause I feel like that's more my bugaboo than yours Sure But it's for sure It's a bugaboo

[00:02:45] A bad movie podcast because I think there's a lot of podcasts that do that really well Agreed, and we've done a, you know, our last couple mini-series have been mostly directors Who have a lot of success Right, and obviously yes, we started off as a phantom menace

[00:02:58] You know, we've talked about the star wars prequels yada yada yada Butchowski, Shyamalan, Crow are all people who sort of fell from grace At least in terms of the court of public opinion Even then though we've always been movie fans first

[00:03:08] And that's one of the things that makes our podcast so good This podcast is called blank check by the way We try to find something good about every movie We really do I think we really do I agree

[00:03:17] But you saw a movie at a critic screening on Wednesday And texted me and said, I don't understand this It's bonkers I mean it's bonkers It felt like a dream I had You know when you have a dream that you see a movie

[00:03:30] And then you wake up and you're like Oh, that movie didn't make any sense Like within my dream obviously Like once I dreamed before the dark night had come out Speaking of Christopher Nolan No, before the dark night rises came out I dreamed that I saw it

[00:03:44] Oh, I do that all the time With movies I'm excited for I dream them and they don't make sense Right, I saw it But it was outside And it was like being projected onto the sky Yeah And it was called 20 Years But More Italians

[00:03:55] That was the name of the movie Wow Yes Well so like I'll have dreams like that Where I like dream that I'm seeing the dark night rises But then the second to dream Like in the dream when the movie ends I walk out of the theater

[00:04:05] I'm like, oh wait that's where the cat woman wasn't in it at all Cause she was in the trailers and then Hathaway's like part of the advertising campaign It's just like oh you're dumb memory for a god Okay Okay anyway You saw this movie and said it's bonkers

[00:04:18] It kind of broke me And then I went to go see Captain the Pants The first epic movie by myself On a Thursday in the most On-brand move of all time Yeah, in the most Griffin thing that's ever happened

[00:04:29] Have we introduced ourselves in the name of this podcast? Yeah, I'm Griffin Namier, David Sims This is Blank Shek with Griffin and David Okay, sorry Ben Dooser, okay, the poet laureate Okay, the haze Okay, Mr. Positive Okay, tiebreaker Okay, birthday benny Okay, dirt bike benny

[00:04:42] Okay, so can whip benny Okay, the meat detective, the fart lover Please go on This is a graduate of certain tales Of course a different mini series The Kyle Ben, producer Ben Kanovi Say Benny thing Benny Chomlon Ben say the Ailee Benz

[00:04:55] With the Bell or Sound of War haze We've introduced ourselves Yes, we're all here It's all here I don't know anything about this movie I've never even heard of it So I walk out of Captain Underpants What's starting at the screen right next to mine

[00:05:06] The 7 o'clock Thursday night First showing publicly of this movie And I went, I gotta do it I gotta face it, I gotta open the book Right, gotta open the book of Henry And that's what I did I opened the book of Henry

[00:05:19] And I texted David and I said We gotta do it And I said, no, please no I don't want to Let's not do it Because we don't like ragging on movies Honestly, and I honestly don't As much as I think Colin Trevor is a bad guy

[00:05:34] Someone begging to have his penis punctured And I'm not a fan Like, I do get a little sick of the sort of Heard or hoared mentality That can build up on the internet About certain filmmakers About certain artists About certain actors Look, the guy made a bad movie

[00:05:51] It's not like he's out here being A correction The guy made three bad movies Sure But each worst, well, no Actually, the second movie is the best But, you know Well, I disagree with that You think safety and guarantee Is better than Jurassic Park Jurassic Park. I do.

[00:06:03] All right, go watch Safety Not Guaranteed, my friend. You will reverse that opinion. This is like ranking different types of civil assets. No, I'm serious, because I think people, that's a common, and like go watch Safety Not Guaranteed. I hate Safety Not Guaranteed.

[00:06:14] It'll blow your mind how much you hate it. I hate that movie. I like more of that movie. Now listen to me piling on. No, I like Jurassic Park, because it has dinosaurs in it. Which are cool. Even though they do a lot of things

[00:06:24] I don't agree with. Politically. Yeah, exactly, politically anti-dinosaur. But so yeah, so I don't want to be like kicking the guy when he's down essentially. Great, and as I said, we usually, even when we talk about movies that are disastrous,

[00:06:37] really try to find the silver lining in that. Well not only that, we're fascinated with the directors. Like George Lucas and Mike Shumlin, Cameron Crowe, they make bad movies, but we're still like, you know, there was a point in our lives when we were into these guys,

[00:06:49] or there will be a point again. And as our past... I've never been into this motherfucker. As our past and future guest, JD Yamato, a friend of the podcast has said, he thinks every movie is about its director. Yeah. You know?

[00:07:03] And I still can't fucking crack this guy's psychology. It's a mess, but these three movies are very different. Yes. They're all fucked up in different ways. There are some similarities. I think there's some similarities. There are some, but I still can't figure out

[00:07:16] what the fuck is driving him. I don't either, I don't know that anything is. You know, there are some directors where it's like, you know, maybe probably best not to overthink it, because like in the end of the day,

[00:07:27] they just want to make movies and they, you know, he's not someone who writes, no. He very much refers to himself as a screenwriter, even though he hasn't really written on his movie. He has two writing credits and it's the two Jurassic worlds.

[00:07:40] He's not the writer of safety, not guaranteed, or this movie, but I assume he had a hand in writing them, but yeah, he's more of a director. He wants to direct. Talks to himself as a screenwriter in interviews. I read interviews of his because I made mass kiss.

[00:07:54] He's a tough guy in an interview, I'll admit. He doesn't come off great sometimes, but anyway, he made a movie. He made a movie, The Book of Henry. Now look, I love hyperbole. Some would say I like hyperbole. You always say it funny.

[00:08:08] It's just fine, you're a carry on. I can't say hyperbole? I can't say hyperbole. I mean, you can if you want. No one's stopping you. Carry on. I love hyperbole. Yes. Okay. Yes. I think hyperbole is more than anyone else in the world. You're a fan.

[00:08:24] Oh, here it comes. Here comes the hyperbole. I just figured out what you're setting up. But I walked out of this movie. And before I walked out, around 30 minutes, and I went, geez, is this happening? This is my least favorite movie I have ever seen.

[00:08:38] Now, period, full stop, end of sentence, rip out the page, burn it. I disagree, but it is a very bad movie. It's probably the worst film I've seen this year. Look, I'm not saying this is the worst movie ever made. I would never make any claim like that.

[00:08:49] I will say, I have never hated watching a movie more. What's it beating? What's it beating? France Ford Coppola's Jack. That used to be the movie I hated watching the most. I think I hate Jack more than this movie.

[00:09:01] There's a lot of movies I hate more than this movie for the reason that I wouldn't like a movie like Jack, which is like- Those are similar movies, Jack and Book of Henry. They have a lot of similar qualities that make me hate them.

[00:09:11] Weird manipulativeness and atonal kind of- Right, and this modlin like- Yeah. Oh, childlike wonder, but with some really dark kind of psychologically fucked up stuff that has no control over oscillating between. Really glib humor. Actors punching way below their weight class.

[00:09:31] Yes, but anyway, it is a very bad film. I wrote a review of it on The Atlantic where I work. You can read it. I think it's a failure of a movie in every way. Yeah, I agree. And so, right. So it's not usually the kind of movie

[00:09:51] I wanna talk about on this podcast. I'll admit, yes, there is something fascinating about why it exists. Right. That's probably the only thing that kinda keeps you on board. It kept me on board for the hour 45 minutes or however long it is.

[00:10:05] Like where you're just like, what does he want from us? What's the angle? Like what is he trying to convey? What's the play? So here's our plan with this episode. I just wanna say, I saw it with Emily Ashida. Mother of Blankies.

[00:10:18] Past and future guests, Mother of Blankies, one of our greatest guests. And Armand White, past and future guests. And Armand White. Father of Blankies. You did sit between. I was sitting between the two of them. And Emily and I were both pretty bewildered by the movie.

[00:10:32] We were howling by the end of it as was Armand. And... Howl.dfm. Sure, The Widow Halap. That's one of my favorite weird Scott Arkham and jokes. He calls The Widow Cool Up. We're getting The Widow Halap. And we were like, Jesus.

[00:10:48] So we were like, fuck, let's, we gotta get it. I was like, can we get a drink? Like it's weird. We gotta talk about it. You gotta talk about it. And while we were getting a drink, Emily was talking about the movie.

[00:10:55] She was like, you know, that is a blank check movie. That's a blank check movie. 100%. And as, even though it's like a small budget movie, she's right. It is. It's a weird blank check movie. There would have been a lot more stop signs

[00:11:06] if that guy hadn't just made the third highest grossing movie in history. Now in my opinion, this is the blank check movie you get to make after making safety got not guaranteed, which is basically what it was in a weird sort of a way

[00:11:17] because he almost did make it after safety. Not guaranteed. In terms of style and size, yes. But I think people would have gone like, wait a second, the script is fucked up. Well, I think if... They would have questioned what he was doing more

[00:11:26] if he hadn't made Jurassic World. Maybe, but we'll talk about the script. Okay. But anyway, it is a blank check movie in some sense. Everyone who's fucking tweeting at me all the time, telling me how my show works, shut up.

[00:11:38] I know what goes on my show, not you, you little nerds. But yeah, it is kind of a blank check movie. Well, people are gonna love this episode. So here's the deal. We have both seen this movie. They bullied me into doing this episode.

[00:11:49] I am gonna call them little nerds. To be fair, I bullied you into doing this. Yeah, you definitely did. We've both seen this movie. Here's for Ben is not. No, he has not to his... I think we told,

[00:12:00] I said at least in the text convo in the thread. I was like, Ben, don't see it. It wasn't an obvious. Have you even seen the trailer? No. So what do you know about this movie? I know it's called Book of Henry. Perfect.

[00:12:13] And you know it's directed by Colin Trevorrow. Wikipedia you have loaded. I just started looking. I don't know very much about Colin Trevorrow. There he is. So here's the plan. This is the second episode we recorded today. We rarely do that because it usually makes us go crazy.

[00:12:27] Right, but we're a little crazy. We're trying to weaponize this. So this is gonna be a bonus episode. It's gonna aim to be a little tighter than we usually are because it's an emergency. Ben is about to put one hour on the clock.

[00:12:38] Yeah, Ben, you got it ready? Yes. Now we love our tangents. We love being verbose. We do. Our goal is within an hour to fully explain to Ben what happens in this movie. I think we can do that. I don't think it's that hard.

[00:12:49] The plot is very convoluted. There are a lot of weird wrinkles. But it's easy enough to just... Yeah, anyway. Also we should know I am not cutting anything now. Anything, zero edits. Use the timer, not the stopwatch. Oh sure, you're right.

[00:13:03] Cause I want like an alarm when it goes. Tell me when you started it. All right. So, pick the sound. And Ben, if you don't understand something and how we're describing the movie, ask us, okay? Yeah, sure. If anything is confusing, don't let us just be like,

[00:13:20] anyway, what happens is this? Like if you want to figure something out that we're not conveying, let us know. The goal here is for you to get the second hand osmosis experience of having seen the book of Henry. Right. So we wanted to be...

[00:13:33] Same goal for I would say some of our listeners. Right, we want it to be complete. So any follow up questions, any clarifications? Shoot, timer started. Starting now. Okay, so it's a focus feature release. True, made by focus features,

[00:13:47] which is Branch of Universal where he made Jurassic World. Right, specialty arm used to be one of the power players in the field has sort of backed off now. A little bit, but you know whatever. It's more of a distribution company

[00:13:59] for like genre films than what used to be like the studio behind Lost in Translation. Sure, sure. Hybrow Oscar movies, okay? Yes. But so that very much tells you what kind of patina he thinks this movie's at. Griffin's favorite word, Karen.

[00:14:12] Love patina, I heard Ron Perlman use it in an interview once 10 years ago and I looked it up and I was like, I'm gonna use that whenever I can. Yes, it is a green or brown film on the surface of bronze or similar metals

[00:14:23] produced by oxidation over a long period. Okay, David, we only have an hour. You don't want me to read the other dictionary? I mean, read the other ones so people know why I'm using the word. Okay, okay, no, it's...

[00:14:33] Oh, is that why the Statue of Liberty looks like that? Yes, yes. But anyway, it's kind of the world they play in, right? The sort of... It's like their palette. The tonal veneer. Yes. Okay, so this movie immediately establishes its own patina which is like fucking,

[00:14:52] like a third rate ambulance. Yes, it sort of has, especially in the beginning in the title sequence, the title cards. Which is like drawings that a child did of like wings and various wheels. Goldberg machines. You're seeing the titular book,

[00:15:08] the pages of the book, Ben, and they're animated. It has the feeling of an 80s Spielberg movie a little bit or I would say, yeah, like a 90s kid movie a little bit, those kinds of like, what's like a good example? Like Simon Burch. Yes.

[00:15:22] Like some like movie that would maybe be... Nostalgic. A little dark but also kind of whimsical and intended for young viewers. Right, but not as much like a supernatural thing as like a radio flyer kind of like. When childhood was tough sometimes, kind of moving.

[00:15:37] Right, almost like Wonder Year's Eve. I mean it's set now but it kind of apart from the fact that like the mom plays a PlayStation 3 or 4 or whatever. And like, I guess they have cell phones but like there's not a lot of like indication

[00:15:51] that it's taking place in the 21st century. And in fact, get ready Ben because there are some very anachronistic technology in the film. Oh, I like that. Now the script was written in 1998. Script was written in 1998 by Greg Hurwitz who's a mystery writer.

[00:16:03] Like he writes crime novels and comic books. He's never written a movie that was made until this. But has like 20 scripts that have been bought at some point. He's one of those guys who seemingly just writes a lot of scripts. Yeah, he just makes a lot of money

[00:16:13] in Hollywood selling scripts. He worked on V, the reboot of V. The epic series. The epic lizard alien TV show. But yeah, he's just kind of around. So this script's been kicking around forever. Trevor reads it after safety not guaranteed and goes like, oh I like this,

[00:16:27] I wanna make this next. No, he was given it to be clear. The studio decided he would be a good fit after safety not guaranteed for this script that was like, this script they had. Bit never will. Right, right. He reads it and he likes it, yes.

[00:16:40] And then Brad Bird recommends him and then he gets thrown Jurassic World and then he makes that. And now he has like full cachet and he could do whatever he wants and he's like, you know what I'm doing? I'm going back to the book baby.

[00:16:54] Let me try, I actually have some like, like an interview with Greg Hurwitz who went to Harvard. So this interview was in Harvard's alumni magazine. Great. He says, he wrote it 18 years ago. It felt like this pure rare thing

[00:17:13] where I thought of a single mom and two kids in an impossible predicament and Henry's voice, the protagonist of the film came very naturally to me. He'd already sold a novel but this was his first screenplay. It was optioned by a producer called Jeanette Kahn.

[00:17:28] Have you heard of her, Griffin? I mean, just you reading that quote from him maybe physically angry. And she saw safety not guaranteed. Flashbacks to this movie. She saw safety not guaranteed, offers this script to Colin Trevro and listen to this. Colin meets with Greg Hurwitz

[00:17:45] and says to Greg Hurwitz, listen, there's only one way I wouldn't do this movie. I had a meeting with Spielberg about doing the next Jurassic World movie but there's no way that would ever happen with me coming off such a tiny movie so let's not worry about it.

[00:17:58] And then a few weeks later he calls Greg Hurwitz and is like, so I got Jurassic. But then he went back to book of Henry. And then he says in this convo, maybe I'll be able to do it and then come back and we could make it.

[00:18:08] But at the same time he's saying like, look, I mean obviously someone else wants to make the movie. I'm not gonna like big foot you on this. He's like, you know. But like, you know, he had all the power he wanted after Jurassic World. For sure.

[00:18:21] So he didn't have to come back. It led to him getting hired to make Star Wars. Right, it wasn't like he was like, he'd signed a deal and it's like, you owe me a book of Henry before you go make a Star War.

[00:18:30] He had what was at that point in time the biggest opening weekend in history. And the film ended up as the number three movie domestically until it was knocked down a peg by Force Awakens. Fine, but it was a huge hit. Humongous.

[00:18:42] So he could have done anything he wanted and he said I wanna go back to book of Henry. It's burning a hole in my pocket. I gotta make this movie. Now to be clear, this was announced in March 2015. I've got my research here.

[00:18:52] So before Jurassic World came out, it's announced in the Hollywood Reporter, book of Henry. That's his next project. Of course he could have leapt off of it, but I think he shot this like a while ago. He shot it right the fall after Jurassic World.

[00:19:05] He shot it September 2015, right after Jurassic World. And it was supposed to come out September of last year in an Oscar play. Focus then pushes it to summer 2017. Weird move for a little $10 million family dramedy. Like not really an obvious, especially opening seven genres off of that list.

[00:19:26] Fine, but as you sell the movie, I mean. Sure. And especially weird to open it against Cars 3, which is like one of the surefire family hits of the year. After this moment everything will change. So that's the production of the book of Henry.

[00:19:42] But he makes it, he casts Naomi Watts, Academy Award nominee. Jacob Tremblay, hot off of Room. Hot off of being in Room. You got Jaden Lieberherr, how do you say his name? Lieber, Lieberherr? I don't know. An actor I like a lot. He's in Aloha.

[00:19:56] He's in Midnight Special. He's in St. Vincent and is the star of the upcoming It remake. Right. He had actually worked with Naomi Watts on St. Vincent. Correct. Which is nice. And then he got Dean Nariss as the villain of the piece. Sir Silverman, Lee Pace, Bobby Moynihan.

[00:20:13] Well, this is the thing. Cause I only knew about the four we first mentioned. Sir Silverman shows up. Emily and I go like, what the fuck? Bobby Moynihan. We're like, wait, wait, he's in it? And then yeah, Lee Pace. I don't know if Emily reacted to Lee Pace,

[00:20:27] but I was like, really? Lee Pace? Okay. And fucking Tanya Pinkins who plays the principal, who's a really good actor. She's fucking Tony nominee. I saw her, I've seen her on stage in like Caroline or Change on the British state. Like she's the best.

[00:20:43] And Maddie Ziegler of Dance Moms and Sia Music Videos. That's right. Yes. Little Maddie Ziegler who I've never heard of, but I've been told is a YouTube star. She is. Because she's in the Sia Videos chandelier. She's a dancer, she's not really active before in any substantial way.

[00:20:58] Ben, how much time do we have left? You have 50 minutes. Doing great. Or yeah, 52 minutes. Okay, we gotta get moving on the plot, okay? So Twinkly, I always mispronounce his name. Michael Giacchino. Michael Giacchino. Michael Giacchino. Terrible score by him.

[00:21:14] Although, I mean certainly poorly matched to the film. It feels like he was told to emulate a certain kind of score. Definitely, but it's, come on, you have to admit, as much as I love the guy, it's a really horrendous score.

[00:21:28] I kept thinking, oh what a bad score. And then when I saw him, I was surprised. But I think mismatch is the key word. Fine, but I'm holding him responsible. Sure, yeah. I hold everyone responsible. Everyone in this film should be held responsible for work. You hear that?

[00:21:42] Editor Kevin Stitt. Okay, so the movie starts and we're introduced to... Henry, Carpenter. What a fucking piece of shit this kid is. This little twerp. All right, he's played by Jaden Lieberherr. He's 11 years old. He's the smartest person who's ever lived, apparently. He's like a savant. Okay.

[00:22:00] In every aspect of being a person. Yeah, because it's like... He's kind of like the Glass family kind of thing. Beyond that. Beyond that. Like he talks like a robot man. But you know, they do the thing which I fucking hate, by the way.

[00:22:13] One of my least favorite tropes, I'm already getting worked up about this movie. Once we get into the club, we're gonna go fucking fly off the handle. Which is that thing where it's like... You know... It's adjusting the level. We're hulking out. Something normal happens like...

[00:22:26] The mom says something reassuring. I mean this doesn't happen to the movie. But you know this kind of trope where he immediately almost turns to the audience and breaks the fourth wall and he's like, okay mom, I understand that...

[00:22:37] Right, the thing they do instead, it's show and tell. They're giving presentations about their career. Oh, the opening of the movie is... It's like, and for our next presentation, Jimmy, he gets up with a piece of paper. He's like, I want to be a milk man!

[00:22:49] Dumb fucking kid, missing teeth or whatever. He's like, I grow up, I will. And she was like, okay, some poorly structured senses there. No, she's just a little basic. Right, right. Who the fuck's this teacher? Who hates her students? And then she's like, Henry, get up here.

[00:23:02] And Henry gets up, he has that piece of paper. Ooh, this kid memorized. Or he's going off the dome! He is. And he gives us speech about how like fucking humanity is pointless and life is a charade. What is wanting something, if not just like

[00:23:16] a way to confront the existential despair we all face? But hey, I guess there's that, whatever. And immediately you're like, I hope this movie is an hour and a half of this kid. He's getting slapped out of him. Fucking asshole. Henry.

[00:23:31] You want to see this kid stuffed in the rocker. He's so anti-bullying. Like who's this fucking kid? Anytime anyone says anything to him in the movie. He gives this honestly unprepared. Presentation. And this is an actor I like a lot.

[00:23:45] I think he's one of the best actors of his age range. He's okay, I mean, he's fine. But this character is so invariable. No, then his teacher comes up to him and is like, oh Henry, why can't we put you in a gifted and talented program again?

[00:23:55] I'm sorry, I told you before because social psychological- Because it's good for my social development to be in a mixed age group or a mixed intelligence group or whatever. But every line of this film feels like the writer wrote it in the most obvious way

[00:24:07] to say that sentence and then took out a fissure and then replaced each word. Or really just like cracked out like Dr. Spock and like just copy pasted some bit of child development. And then later when it's about, he's talking about the stock market.

[00:24:20] You do the same thing with fucking what they don't teach you in Harvard Business School. Right, because any fucking moment, I've never been prouder to not have gone to Harvard than I am now knowing that Greg Hurwitz went to Harvard. Every moment in the movie is like,

[00:24:34] Naomi Watts will say like, I love you sweetie. And he's like, ha ha ha. But now all reassurances of loving platitudes are a way to dull our minds from the existential. You're just like, fucking just take it! He always has to like explain

[00:24:47] how what everyone else is doing is like a veneer. Right, that's so annoying. That's what I'm saying, I fucking hate. I hate that trope. So he's this annoying kid. Fucking sucks, fuck this kid. He has a single, he has a little brother called Peter played by Peter Jeremiah.

[00:25:00] He was like a cute kid with glasses. Yeah, like more of a- Like now he's his character, his character. His character is cute, he's got glasses. Yeah, he's like a cute little kid. He's not a like super free intelligent kid. Normal kid.

[00:25:11] And then he's got a mom, Susan, who's a waitress played by Naomi Watts. Waitress the local dino, singer mother with some kind of like rough edges. Like she's not an alcoholic but a bit of a lush. Like she's kind of a weird parent.

[00:25:27] She like plays video games all the time. She loves playing video games. Sometimes she's characterized- She's got a lot of bits. Sometimes she's got a lot of business. Sometimes she's characterized like Robin Williams and Jack, where you're like is the point here that she's developmentally disabled?

[00:25:40] Cause there's like some I am Sam shit where it's like she's on the couch playing video games. Who's Seltzer is this? I think Amy Nicholson. Okay, I'll drink it. We just recorded an episode with Amy Nicholson. Oh, is yours here in Seltzer? Yeah, it's by Seltzer.

[00:25:51] Oh, I'm losing episode? Yeah, thank you. Okay, but spoiler, Amy Nicholson's on an upcoming episode. Also Jack Nicholson was on the episode. Yeah, of course. It was a bring your daughter to podcast. Hey, Amy, I can't do it. For the lesser home, David is holding his highbrow.

[00:26:06] Hey, Amy. No, I can't do it. I wish I could do it. Okay, David enough with the fun bits. We have to go back to being angry. Okay. There's a moment where he is going over their bills. Oh, I just wanted to say right.

[00:26:16] The idea is he's the man of the house. You know, he runs the household. And that's maybe why she's this sort of arrested development type because she has the super genius kid. Even though he's 11, like once he'd been running the stock markets

[00:26:28] to do with six, the fuck is this? At what point did the mom check out and go like, oh, I don't need to be an adult cause my kids an adult? How does she afford this nice house? Was it three? Was it at nine? She's a waitress.

[00:26:38] Yeah, and then at some point later in the phone they sell, she has $780,000 in a bank account. $680,000. Okay. I made it clear. She has almost 700,000 dollars. She's got 650K or whatever in a bank account cause this kid plays the stock market like crazy.

[00:26:51] And there's all these bits where he's like, mom, you really should get a new car. And she's like, the old car works fine. And they all say it in unison. Like it's a fun fucking thing that they all say. Like it's a running joke.

[00:27:03] The old car works fine. Oh yes, that specific thing only our mom says. All right, but what did you wanna say about Naomi Watts? He's like there with like little glasses down at the bottom of the bridge. Yeah, he's doing the bills.

[00:27:14] And he's got like seven newspapers and bills and he's like, mom, where's the FICA score and this and that? And mom's like, oh Henry, I'm trying to play my video game. She's playing Gears of War. And she's like feet up on the couch playing Xbox.

[00:27:25] Okay, I see what's going on. It's like a roll reverse. Whoa! Right? And he's like, you really shouldn't lean into it cause she's doing the thing when you play video games or you kind of lean into the controller. And she's like, no, see it totally works.

[00:27:35] It's literally like she's a 10 year old. Mother, you realize that leaning into a video game screen doesn't do anything, right? It's literally, that's the dynamic here. That's the dynamic. It's fucking edible weird shit. Right, cause it also feels a little sexual. Like it never crosses a line.

[00:27:48] No, it doesn't, but it's weird. But because she keeps on saying I don't need a husband, I have Henry. Yes. And like anytime anything happens to her she's like, well, I have to check with Henry first. And no one explicitly sits her down and says

[00:27:58] your relationship with your son's really weird. I mean people kind of like hint at it. Sarah Silverman kind of makes fun of it. Sarah Silverman in this movie is styled exactly like Amy Winehouse. She has the tattoos on the boobs. She has the beehive hairdo and the eyeliner.

[00:28:10] Yes. She's the like drunk, like dangerous drunk. She's a full stop like dangerous level alcoholic. She has like bottles of wine in her bra. Like it's like she's constantly wasted. They find her passed out on like on like some wicker furniture. Yeah, in backyards or somewhere.

[00:28:26] Like outdoors, shit. And she's like, why don't you just go get a man? And she's like, find me one man out there who is half as responsible, mature and intelligent as Henry. And it's like, don't you wanna get, you know... Do you wanna get some of that dick?

[00:28:42] Get some sex. Well, have some little bit of sex. Don't do what you want. Get that dick. Like his dad's out of the picture. We don't even, I forget why. Never explained. He's just an asshole. Oh remember, now that my husband left me

[00:28:53] with the two kids they just like invoke him once. You have no idea who the fuck he is. What happened? She seems pretty high functioning. She doesn't seem like totally burnt out. Naomi Watts, you mean? Yeah. No, she's fine. Like she's immature, but she doesn't feel broken.

[00:29:04] She doesn't feel like sad. There's a world where she's kind of like Tony Collette in about a boy or six cents. Six cents where it's like, yeah, oh I get it. Like, yeah, this mom's a little weird and a little unconventional,

[00:29:16] but she's like a good mom at the heart of it. But I would say this movie does not succeed in that portrayal. And two points. For the movie to work, the Naomi Watts character, there's a thousand reasons the movie doesn't work.

[00:29:28] But for that plot line to actually kind of track, the Naomi Watts character has to be more of a disaster, Allah, the sort of Silverman character where you're like, oh man, she really can't keep herself up. Whereas with the way the Naomi Watts character

[00:29:39] is characterized, you're just constantly like, is she just choosing not to take on any responsibility because she's lazy? Like she's just trying to like force herself into adolescence. It feels like Naomi Watts is playing a child in an SNL sketch. Yeah, sure.

[00:29:53] Where you're like, well this is non-literal representational sketch comedy and she's doing a good job of like affecting the mannerisms of a small child. Like a little boy playing video games on the couch. It all feels a little forced as does everything in this movie.

[00:30:05] Okay, so that's this movie, right? That's the initial relationship that's set up. And then the other thing is that Henry is this weird creative genius where he makes these fucking Rube Goldberg machines around the house. They have this like steampunk tree house in the woods

[00:30:19] that he and his little brother go to. The doors may have a fridge, but it's the perfect section of a fridge and like the roof is an upside down tugboat and the fucking, like you know, the staircases. It's a bunch of concept art garbage. Yeah, exactly.

[00:30:33] It's all like found art beautiful, like Brooklyn artisanal art festival. I like the sound of a bone stare. Yeah, that's what he made that part up. I made that part up, but the door is a fridge. Cool. And it's like they go in there

[00:30:45] and here's one of the many zillion problems I have this movie. It's like they go into this wonderland. What do they do? Henry doesn't really do anything. No. He starts like scribbling like fucking equations on a chalkboard or something. Meanwhile, he has a Rube Goldberg machine

[00:31:02] that you like activate all this pool balls, you know, and they like suck a puppet's dick. And then like all it does is it like squirts icing onto a cupcake. Yeah. Too much business. Just squirt the icing on that cup.

[00:31:16] I don't know, I have a cooler Rube Goldberg machine, like have it do something. It's like the world's worst juicer-o machine. I guess the whole point of Rube Goldberg machines is like they do a simple thing complicated. So maybe I'm nitpicking,

[00:31:27] but like it just doesn't feel as wondrous as he wants you to feel like. And this movie's laying down the wonderous, like between the music and the shots. Yeah, it's like tinkly music. Right, it wants you to be like so thoroughly trunbed by everything that's happening.

[00:31:38] And Henry's bedroom is like covered with like blueprints of airplanes as the wallpaper. That's like not what they made, but it's like the most beautifully designed like children's wonderland bedroom. And he's got like this old timey like aviator helmet

[00:31:54] and all these gadgets and whizmos and fuck it, you know? And so there's like a scene where Peter is getting picked on by older kids and he's got like a bronze medal around his neck. What the fuck and shit? Yeah, it's because he got a medal,

[00:32:09] like Henry got a medal that was like smartest little shithead that ever lived, medal. And he gave it to Peter because he's a good big brother. And he's like non-material. He's like, oh, medals are simply like metallic forms. It is a fiat currency to boost our confidence.

[00:32:22] And you're like shot! And you're like, shot! Existential items. And so he's like, yeah, Peter can have it. Naomi Watts is like, okay, Peter can have it. Peter goes to school immediately. They're like, fuck you, Peter. You asshole. Look at how they push him on the ground.

[00:32:33] You think you could have a fucking medal? They push him on the ground and the medal breaks in half in a way that a medal would not. That's true. And it breaks as if it was made out of. Well, maybe it was a poorly made medal. Maybe.

[00:32:42] But yeah, and Peter is angry because Henry was distracted from defending him. Henry's like 80 pounds soaking wet. This kid's not gonna defend anyone. There's like three years age difference between the two. He's a great guy. This is like the least physically active kid

[00:32:57] and he gets home and Peter is inconsolable. He cannot get over this broken medal. So Henry is like, I know how to make you feel better. And Henry sets up a fucking rotating fan and gets a bunch of like confetti or soap flakes or fucking something.

[00:33:15] I forgot about this. But this is important. Yeah, it is important. Okay, and then he puts on that dumb little helmet with the goggles. Yeah, do you see that? And he gets some, which is the poster image. This is the only moment where the helmet comes into play.

[00:33:27] Does it ever use it again? No. It's just sitting on their mantle as another piece of like fucking art direction. Yeah, right. Because there's too much business going on in their bedroom. There's a lot of business in their bedroom. So he sets up... Look, it's like my bedroom,

[00:33:38] but when I was 17 years old. Right, it's like my bedroom now. Except everything's there because I like it. Not because some fucking person thought it would look fun. Anyway, sorry. He sets up the stupid confetti or whatever. Okay, so he sets up the fucking soap flakes

[00:33:51] and the fan and they pours it so that like the door frame is like this and Peter's on the bed and Henry's out in the hallway and all you can see from the door frame is like, now this like... Snow blowing by.

[00:34:02] It looks like snow is blowing by sideways. Do you get what I'm saying? It's like the old Adam West Batman where he climbed up the wall, but it was clearly filmed like they just tilted the camera. He was two plungers and he's like pretending

[00:34:13] to climb up a mountain. So he's on the floor on his belly, pretend to climb up Mount Everest like there's snow coming down and Peter loves this. He thinks it's so cute and you're just like, what the fuck is this movie? Yeah, you're kind of like, okay.

[00:34:23] I have no idea where this is going. The first 45 minutes of the movie is all this kind of business. Like it's mostly just sort of whimsical shit with one... I'd say less, it's like 30. It's pretty compact because the whole movie is like 90 and out.

[00:34:35] No, the movie's an hour 45. Really? Yeah. It's the first 45 minutes. I'm pretty sure about it. Cause 45 minutes in is when something happens. But before we get to that. But the whole movie, like Henry is telling everyone that everything they do is like stupid human business.

[00:34:50] They do to placate themselves in the meaningless of their lives. But he does it too. He does the most meaningless like dumb frivolous dream. Because he loves his brother, you monster! But you're like, that's the thing that will make your brother happen. The other thing I wanna note

[00:35:00] before we get to the serious things... Peter loves it by the way. He loves it. Is that Naomi Watts, when she's putting into bed like takes out a ukulele and plays a song which is God awful. The worst. Oh boy.

[00:35:10] And that was the opening line of your review. Can you quote the opening line? Yes, like the movie lost me. I can probably find it. But this is the oscillation between the movie where it's like, okay, sometimes for comedic effect

[00:35:22] Naomi Watts seems totally checked out as a mom. It's like a child there parenting her. That's the joke. And he's like, stop playing video games. And she's like, oh come on, why are you so boring? Mom! And then sometimes when she's putting them to bed

[00:35:32] she's like the most attentive empathetic, like observant mother in the world. And they just wanna play up these scenes that feel like, oh this is what it felt when your mommy loved you. She took some to bed, she called some tamale one, tamale two.

[00:35:44] I know enchilada one, enchilada two. I'm sorry. Will Goss wanted us to check, wanted to check which one of us is enchilada one and which one of us is enchilada two. I'm enchilada two, I'm Peter, you're Henry right? Fair enough.

[00:35:53] The exact moment the book of Henry lost me. Right because I'm Meek and you're really smart. You know everything. Well said. Thank you. The exact moment the book of Henry lost me was when Naomi Watts reached for the ukulele. That's my first line. That happens 20, 21 minutes.

[00:36:06] Now the other thing that's going on is that Henry... She sings this original song that was written for the movie and then Stevie Nicks does a cover of the song in the end credits. That's true. Stevie Nicks did a song for the movie.

[00:36:15] That's their after best original song play. Yeah, it's gonna win. So next door to the carpenter family. Oh no, I forgot. How did you forget? Because I was so focused on this bullsh**. I know I was so focused on this bullsh**. Next door to the carpenter family

[00:36:31] is the sickleman family. Okay. Oh they sound nice. Played by, yes, sickleman. Played by Dean Norris as Glenn, the patriarch, who is the stepfather to Maddie Ziegler's character, Christina, who's an 11 year old girl in Henry's class. And I would describe Dean Norris' performance

[00:36:50] as what if Hank from Breaking Bad had no redeeming qualities whatsoever and no dimensionality? It's basically like, you know, here's how I did it, if I'm directing it. Sure. To get this exact performance. I go up to Dean and I'm like,

[00:37:04] you know you're under the dome character, like worse. You wanna do that worse? Cause basically he's just sort of grumble. There's no shades of gray in this character. This guy is just. His first introduction is like, he's like, sozern and she's like, yeah, what's up,

[00:37:20] Mr. Fickleman or Mr. Sickleman? Sickle, sickle, sickle. Your leaves are blowing into my yard. Rake your leaves. Rake your leaves. But he's not even yelling, he's just kind of like an asshole. He's just kind of like a little asshole. You start out thinking he's an asshole

[00:37:35] and then the movie slowly reveals to you that he is the worst human being ever. All right, so basically he's, and then she, you know, just to get some exposition out, it's like, you know, she says something to Maddie, to Maddie's equal, to Christina like,

[00:37:48] oh, you know, you and your father and she's like stepfather. In one of five lines this character has. She doesn't say anything. It's true. And the idea is obviously she's very shut down. The film makes no effort. It's not like Violet Incredible. She's got the hair hanging down

[00:38:00] over one side of her face. You can only see one eye. She's kind of slouchy. And she doesn't talk much because why? Her stepfather is abusing her. Sexually. I think, they actually never say it. They never say it. The, it has to be. It's a PG-13 movie.

[00:38:16] I think it has to be. But he's doing it with the curtains open. So this is why this is knowledge because Henry's watching from next door through his bedroom window. As she's like. Totally adjacent windows. Right. She's sitting in her room looking very despondent.

[00:38:32] And you're like, he's looking down. And then on the ground floor you see him. Like the stepdad sitting there. She's on the top floor like brushing a Barbie doll's hair. He's in the bottom floor like drinking whiskey and growling. And then he follows him up to the bedroom

[00:38:45] and then he'll just cut to Henry's reaction. It's like a fucking like educational video about like detecting child abuse. It's like make sure like, like watch four signs. And it's like the most sort of like basic undramatic lack of nuance. You know, however you want to put it.

[00:39:06] Yeah, it's very didactic. It's just like he is abusing her. FYI, like important for later story. Now in this scene where she is introduced and he yells about or grumbles about the leaves. It's also set up. Nemi Watts is so happy to see her.

[00:39:23] They have a secret handshake. Like a very complicated hand trap. Hey, what's up? Catching the flip side. Oh boy. Apparently Nemi Watts and this girl next door are fucking annoying. Our best friends. And then when they walk away, Nemi Watts is like,

[00:39:36] so when are you going to make her my daughter-in-law to Henry and just keeps on talking about how Henry's going to date this girl. Right. And so you think they're setting up some thing where like, okay, they have a weird flirtation,

[00:39:46] but then they never talk the entire movie because this girl's not a character. She's not a character. But the entire thing about her, they never make her a human being. Excuse me. Until the end, we'll get to that though. Yeah, there better be a reason

[00:39:57] why they're having a character be put through this. Oh no, you'll see. Oh, oh, oh, oh, no, no, you'll see. Oh, you'll see. Well, I'm not going to see it. Oh, Ben, you'll see it. 45 minutes into the movie or so. Well, after there's the first light-

[00:40:09] Oh right, right. Where you see him on screen observe the abuse, right? And then the next day he goes into school and there's a test. Talks to the principal. Well, he's sitting there and she's like at the cafeteria. She's not eating her food.

[00:40:21] He knows his bruises on her and he goes to the principal and he's like, I told you once, I told you a thousand times, all the signs are there. Bruises, her grades have declined. Like she's- Like an appetite. And the principal's like, Henry,

[00:40:33] you're a child, you have no evidence, I can't go off of this. Right, the principal's basically saying I can't make a basis accusation and the other thing is he's the police commissioner so it's hard to like- Ooh, twist. Accuses him of a crime. The beloved police commissioner

[00:40:47] is abusing his stepdaughter- Of this town Cavalry, New York. Will believe him. And in this movie, the only person who has power to actually take the police commissioner down is the principal if she chooses to. I guess so, but there's- It's seemingly because she's-

[00:41:01] Okay, well just let me just get this out and then we gotta get to the first twist. Henry does call Child Protector Services. Takes a pamphlet at her office, dials the number on the back. And then watches as this Child Protector Services officer goes to the house,

[00:41:13] talks to Hank, I mean he's not called Hank in this movie, I glen. And he goes like, Glenn, hey sorry, I don't know what's going on here. Hand him on the shoulder, hey I just gotta talk to her. You know I gotta check.

[00:41:22] He's all kind of wordless because he's watching and then Henry turns over the pamphlet and the head of Child Protector Services is like Jim Sickleman or whatever, you know, his brother. He's wired the whole town for child molesting. But the movie's setting up this thing.

[00:41:38] The stupidest thing in the world where it's like, this goes straight to the top. This one thing where he just abuses one person. He has people installed at every position of power. This movie's weirdly anti-bureaucracy even though it's not making any larger point

[00:41:54] because Henry's like, the principal won't listen. The police commissioner's in on it. His brother's Child Protector Services agency. No one will listen to me. I think the idea if you're gonna do this movie well or if the script would be possibly good, it's not bad script.

[00:42:08] It's a bad script. The idea is like Henry who is so smart and can work the stock market yada yada but he's been confronted with this more complex human problem and these human failings. And he's like, I can't do anything about this. Why can't I fix this?

[00:42:23] Like I can fix anything else. This is a movie about a child trying to figure out how to deal with a world that doesn't exist in absolutes. That isn't hard numbers. No, there's a way to do that. That involves finesse. Yes, but here's what happens.

[00:42:34] At that moment when these pieces are on the board and you think that's the movie that should be made, Henry out of nowhere gets a tumor. He gets brain cancer. Da da da da da da da da. They do that. Yeah. And in the most annoying way.

[00:42:49] They have a montage where they play that song. Yeah, they play that song. And Scotty Pippin comes onto the court. Bloody diva. Come on, Islam! Welcome to the gym! The monstars. He like collapses. He collapses from headaches. He goes to the hospital.

[00:43:06] She wakes up to hear Jacob Tramblin screaming. Oh right, he's having a seizure. And they go to the hospital. They take him to the hospital. I fucking hate this scene. They immediately perform brain surgery on him. Wait, they go to the hospital. We gotta perform it right away.

[00:43:19] Well, Lee Pace is like, have you been having headaches? And he's like, yeah, for a few months now. And Lee Pace is like, this kid has a major tumor that's on his brain. We need to take it out. And Henry like corrects him.

[00:43:28] He's like, well I thought it was just this and that. No, no, no, no, no. That happens after the surgery. Lee Pace comes in, Henry's head's all bandaged up. That's, you know, he had brain surgery because of the bandage on his head. Okay. And he's like.

[00:43:40] A little tip, filmmaking tip for you to convey brain surgery, put a bandage on someone's head. He's like, hey sport slugger. Yeah, how are you doing? You see the thing is there's a nasty thing in your head. And he's like. There's a bully in your body.

[00:43:54] And Henry's like, give it to me straight doctor. What are we talking about? Melanoma, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the doctor's like, oh, rather than going like, hey, what's the deal with you knowing about advanced brain can't doctoring?

[00:44:07] He's like, oh, do you want to take a look at your MRI? And Henry's like, oh yeah, there it is. You know, third front to low. Like it's fucking stupid. I don't care how smart you are. You don't know neurosurgery. It's everything.

[00:44:19] And he went to school for four years or this shit. And Henry essentially says like, well I assumed it was this kind of cancer so I probably have eight years to live. Oh, I misdiagnosed myself. I only have two days to live. And he's like, wait, misdiagn...

[00:44:37] How did you know you had this? Because in the movie when he's convulsing they all act like this has never happened before. Up until that point he's just had a couple headaches and he somehow self-diagnoses himself with some kind of brain tumor.

[00:44:47] At first he's like, well, first I thought it was just stress. Right. And you're like, how smart are you supposed to be? Because you're smart enough that you know the particulars of brain tumors and how to read an MRI. But you're also stupid enough

[00:44:58] that you have three months of blurred vision. You think it might just be stress? You're 11! How stressed out are you? So Lee Pace is the handsome doctor. God, I'm yelling so much. Dr. Ronan the accuser. Yeah, Dr. David Daniels. He's pretty good in the movie.

[00:45:11] He's a good actor. Yeah, good actor. Anyway, so like... He essentially tells them you got less than a week to go. The middle 20... You're dying now. The middle like 20, 25 minutes of the movie is Henry dies. Yeah, I feel like there's a few scenes

[00:45:23] because there's this scene where Sarah Silverman comes in and they do their famous bit where she calls him Hank. Okay. Which is their famous bit where she's like, we forgot about this. And he's like, it's Henry, you dumb bitch. Right, and then he calls her like a whore

[00:45:36] in a slot and a bunch of big thesaurus words. Like $10 words. It's not the hostility these two. Almost like he's jealous of her. Okay, so he just keeps on making jokes about her being like a loose promiscuous woman in a drunk

[00:45:48] and she calls him Hank and just is like sort of like, you know, backhanded, diminutive to him. And then she comes in to visit him by himself when no one else is in the room. And he's like, oh I see now it's the moment

[00:46:00] in the movie where we do this. Like he explains what's happening. He's like, this is page 75 of this screen. Because you feel bad about me now and you feel bad about how you've, you know... But he also says like, look, I know we've always had a contentious relationship

[00:46:12] to say the least, but I'll be honest. It was a coping mechanism for me to shield my libidus interest. And like what he says in dumb Henry speak is like, I always made fun of you because I thought you were pretty.

[00:46:21] And then he translates it like he says that. Because like what I'm trying to say is... And then the movie cuts away from the scene and nothing else happens. Nope, Sarah Silverman kisses him. On the mouth. Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh. And then when the in-scene music factory come back in.

[00:46:36] Oh they bring him back in. That's funny. D-Vac. And then the movie... The movie acts like, ah, the love that could have been if Henry had not died. Like there's this wishful kind of... He could have married this 42 year old diner waitress.

[00:46:53] That's like the ending of Blank Trek except 10 times more. It is but she does kiss him on the mouth and it is weird. Right. And then he dies in his mother's arms saying I want to see the sky. But they find him on the floor of the room

[00:47:05] and they're like what are you doing on the floor out of your bed here? And he said I want to see the sky. So the movie is about the sky. Yeah of course it is. It should be known the movie is about the sky.

[00:47:12] But they find him on the floor and he dies in her arms. And then the movie ends and that's the end of the movie. Are you serious? No absolutely not. There's like a whole third act. You have no idea what the fuck happens next.

[00:47:22] And the book of Henry is open. He says to Peter, Peter's in his room one day and he's, do you want a brownie? No, do you want this? No, he doesn't want food because... Food is a mere lie that humans tell themselves to. Henry's a breatharian.

[00:47:34] He only absorbs light. I'm joking that's not true. So few of what we're saying is a bit, you don't know. Yeah right that's the thing. Everything is plausible. Most of this is in the movie not everything. Okay so he says to Peter, he's like Peter,

[00:47:49] you gotta do me a favor. Okay you gotta do me a solid okay? You're the person I trust most in the world. You have to give her the book of Henry. He doesn't call the book of Henry. He's like I got this red notebook

[00:48:00] with like the fucking Wright brothers flying machine next on the outside. Vitruvian man too or whatever. You have to give her the red book. Don't read it Peter. But mom must read it. Okay so he dies. In her arms then oh, how do you show that they're sad?

[00:48:17] Here's a shot of Peter standing in the middle of a busy street with his head down Charlie Brown walking as leaves fall around him in sad music plays. That's a shot that you have. She's kind of in a daze at one point she's like,

[00:48:29] listen Peter I decided look I know I've been a little out of it because my son just died in my arms. But dessert every meal for the week. Breakfast lunch and dinner and she's like got a bowl and it's like chocolate syrup

[00:48:40] and she's like pouring jolly ranchers into it. And there's one kind of cute moment when Jacob Tremblay brings his fucking dessert lunch from his goddamn emotionally retarded mother. I'm sorry for using that word but she's an idiot. And he's like does anyone wanna trade me for fruit

[00:48:57] and all the kids take his dessert and they give him their fruit? No he's lousy with fruit. I think that moment's okay. That's fine. Jacob Tremblay's good in this movie. Jacob Tremblay. He's the one who kind of comes out on stage.

[00:49:06] Who's kind of doing his thing that he did from a room? But boy is that thing effective. Yeah he's a cute kid, he's fine. He's very natural, he's very winning. One of those cute kid actors where you're like I this is gonna be roughly 13. That's completely. Oh boy.

[00:49:20] It's gonna get ugly. I still like when I was watching the movie I was thinking about when he won that BFCA award and he got up and he said first I wanna thank the broadcast film critics and the camera cuts to Gina Rodriguez like literally going like

[00:49:33] like absolute perfect poise of this kid. It's so cute. I just wanna meet Jacob Tremblay and be like look kid I used to be pretty cute too. Like people used to be pretty tremble in my things. Look at what we got right now.

[00:49:48] Boy oh boy no one wants a piece of this let me tell ya. Man I can get arrested in this town. BFCA more like no FU. I used to be a regular Jacob Tremblay. I was the Jacob Tremblay of Gretnich Village. God that sounds like a great movie.

[00:50:04] All right so they're sad. So Jacob Tremblay decides to crack open the book ahead. You're missing two things. What? Cause there's one moment here that I think is emblematic of a certain type of terrible screenwriting. Where are we at right now? Oh boy 23 minutes.

[00:50:19] Okay 23 minutes left or 23 minutes left. 23 minutes left. Okay there's a moment here that I think is emblematic of something this screenplay does really really poorly. Okay they're making the dessert breakfasts right and these are the two months I want to spotlight. What?

[00:50:36] Ding dong go to the door who is it? Oh it's Dr. Ronan the accuser. Lee Pace is here yeah. And his first line is oh hey I'm sorry I know we had said 430 but I was in the neighborhood decided to stop by a little earlier.

[00:50:49] And she goes oh okay and then he goes you know I don't usually make house calls but I just felt the need to check out on you and Peter so I thought I'd stop by and do that. We get it he making a fucking house call.

[00:51:00] Right but if he says hey I know we agreed on 430 but I got here a little earlier she knows what the deal is he called her up and said hey you know I don't usually make. No he has to explain it cause the audience doesn't understand.

[00:51:10] Okay so that's the movie has no faith in us and the other one like that is she goes back to work at the diner and Bobby Moynihan who's her boss is like hey you think he came back a little too soon. Cause the story is.

[00:51:19] Yeah cause she like you know someone asked for a milkshake and she like you know my coffee has too much sugar in it and she takes like down the whole thing. No no it's like hey is this diet coke or coke and she drinks the whole thing

[00:51:27] and she's like diet. Yeah. And then she throws the glass at their head and CNC music factory comes in. And Bobby Moynihan's like you came back to work too early and she's like no I'm fine. And he's like look I thought like single mom

[00:51:42] run down a house like you needed this job. Find out you live in like this crazy mansion with bespoke art direction. You have $680,000 in the bank. You have a steampuck treehouse that's bigger than my apartment. Right like you don't need this job go take some time off.

[00:51:58] No and he's like I'm not asking. I'm telling. And she walks out and Sarah Silverman follows her and in another piece of character business Sarah Silverman always pretends that she's a billionaire and goes like yeah I was gonna fly my yacht this weekend but then my.

[00:52:11] The Jag was in the fucking Concord. Fucking whatever. We get it. She comes out and starts saying that thing and then she's like come on why don't you come hang out and Naomi watches like I can't I have to go home to my two children.

[00:52:24] Yeah there you go. Okay. You got it cause one of them is dead. Oh she realized in that moment. Or she's doing a bit I don't care. Why would she ever say two children? Cause she's doing the bit. And I know it's a little detail.

[00:52:34] She's doing the bit. No the bit is that she doesn't remember for a second. Oh I forgot my son is done. I'm gonna disagree with you. I think the bit is she's doing the bit but like in a hostile way where she's like

[00:52:46] cause Sarah Silverman's like I would have been laid you know I was laid but the Jag and she's like well I have to go home to my two children. I saw it as the opposite. She's like your shit's fake and so is mine cause of my dead child.

[00:52:58] I saw it as she was killing the bit. Yeah. Okay but either way and I know this is. Hi Raker. What do I think? Who's right. I mean either way we both lose. Yeah. Who's right. David you're right. Yeah great thank you. But either way.

[00:53:15] I just wanted to complete the bit. Either way the cleaner version of that line is go home to my children because children is plural. Two children. But I'm saying to say two is like hat on a hat. Yeah well this movie is got a lot of hats.

[00:53:28] This movie has more hats than I've ever seen. It's a lot of hats. What about the neighbor who's abusing his daughter? Okay great crime we get to do this. So Peter opens the book of Henry goes down to see his mother what does he say to his mother?

[00:53:39] Mother I think Henry wants us to kill our neighbor. He goes I read this book. Henry told me not to, I couldn't really understand most of it can you look at this and the book is Henry has outlined in detail. How to commit the perfect murder.

[00:53:54] How to commit the perfect murder. In the book. Then I swear to God. And here's, this is what the movie is now about. This is what it's about. That's what the movie is about. This is the third act in the movie which is 40 minutes.

[00:54:03] This is the second and third act of the movie. It's a lot of the movie. And there's an initial fight between little Peter and Susan. I'm not gonna murder someone. No no no where Peter says we have to kill Glenn and she's like Mr. Sickleman.

[00:54:17] He's like well Henry it was his dying wish we have to kill him. And she's like Peter we are not murdering the police commissioner and that's final. That's a line in the movie. It's played as like a comedy of manners. Right it's like the joke is how flippant.

[00:54:31] She's like punishing him like listen to me mister we're not murdering anybody. But then she keeps on going like come on there has to be another way. And then he turns the page of the book and the next page says why there is no other way.

[00:54:42] She liked that where like the book is like fucking anticipating everything the mom was gonna say about why she shouldn't do it. And then she's watching from the same place that Henry watched I'm moving this along to you know she's watching the child abuse happen.

[00:54:57] This daughter had two lines of dogs she's in the bedroom curtains open right. And she sees him go upstairs and then walk into the room close the door cluster her shock face. No no Glenn no. She goes in the other room to call him calls him

[00:55:11] so that he'll stop and goes like hey I'm just I'm calling to say. This is where me Emily and Arman just burst out laughing I'm calling to say I'm going to your friend Arman White. She said I'm gonna those you know those leaves

[00:55:22] I was I've been slacking on it but I'm taking care I'm on it now. And he's like okay. Okay. But what she really means is I'm gonna murder you. So she decides now that she's gonna murder him. Per the notes follows.

[00:55:36] So she has now decided to murder a human. Murder her neighbor. Her neighbor. That she's known for a while. A sinful and terrible crime. Sure. Without punishment. But Henry is convinced this is the only way to deal with the situation because he was listening. Right. He's dead.

[00:55:53] And she reads the book. But he left behind the book on telling her. Well yeah one of the things in the book is it says go down to the safe and he goes down to the safe and there's a mini cassette recorder which she will now. Like Fletch.

[00:56:03] Yes. A kid in 2015. He left her a tape. Went to eBay and bought like vintage mini cassette tape. Because you know you can just you can just destroy the tape you know if it was digital. Yeah. She'd be anyway she buys the tape. Now here's the perfect murder.

[00:56:18] Just can I know excuse me. I know it's really complicated. It's really complicated how to execute for a perfect murder. Here's how you do it. You buy a gun you shoot him in the head. I swear to God the movie never explains why

[00:56:28] it's a perfect murder beyond that. The only thing he really helps is. She's got no cover she's got no alibi really. The only thing he helps his mother with is like. How to purchase a gun. How to purchase this gun illicitly off the books

[00:56:39] which is essentially by eavesdropping at the gun store he's found out if you say like Victor sent me or something like that. They'll sell you an assault rifle without waiting for a minute or waiting period. So it'll be like and then he's like he's gone around town

[00:56:52] and he's found out if you throw the gun off this bridge into a dam then no one will find it. Right. Now he hasn't explained how the cops are going to be like huh this guy got shot in the head. The bullet must have come from this steampunk

[00:57:05] tree house like they're not that fucking stupid. They're not going to be like oh he must have fallen on a bullet because the idea is that her two houses are right next to each other right. And if you went out back behind the houses into the woods.

[00:57:16] He must have heard of Lord him out there. Right you would first find that bridge where you're they call it gun throw bridge where you can throw the gun into the water and then passed on the other side that bridge is the bespoke tree house

[00:57:27] which is a perfect assassination spot. So he outlines how to trick Glenn Sickleman into going into the woods where she can shoot him from the tree house and throw the gun over the bridge and never get caught. And he keeps on telling her in the book

[00:57:42] and now on the tape because the tape is narrating like mom I know this is going to sound crazy but you have to believe me. But the tape also talks to her in real time where it's like go to the ATM.

[00:57:50] There's a $500 limit take a left and go to the next ATM. No mom the other left. Right and she's like And she walks off the right way and then she'll be like she's like only $500. She's like I know only $500 but if you go

[00:58:02] to the next ATM you'll be able to get another $500. She listens to the tape on this cassette recorder with iPod headphones. And the tape will say something like get $500. Then there will be a silence in the tape enough time for her to out loud say What Henry?

[00:58:19] In an outdoors voice. Henry what are you talking about only $500. Mom I know $500 isn't gonna sound like a lot. Like this kid fucking recorded this tape. We're running out of time. Right what time are we at? You have 15 minutes. Cause we really cause

[00:58:32] but yes it's all bullshit like this but is there anything else before the actual crime? There's a lot of shoe leather. There's just a lot of her buying the gun getting the money for the gun. Questioning it and learning how to shoot

[00:58:45] like he teaches her via the tape how to like fight. This is like a high powered assault rifle with like a fucking hollow point ammunition that's gonna explode on contact. It becomes like wanted shit. Yeah exactly. She's like bending bullets.

[00:58:57] And you gotta remember the tinkly score is still there. The autumnal lensing like all the crap still there. The ambulance patina. But at the same time she's got this fucking black like dick of a gun. And she's like getting ready to shoot him.

[00:59:12] Okay so here are other things that are happening in the movie. Even though Peter read the book and brought it to her and said I don't understand all of it what's Mr. Sickleman doing to Madeline and she goes something bad. I don't wanna tell you about it.

[00:59:24] It's not Madeline, it's Christina. Yeah it's Christina Madeline. Sorry. She then tells Peter that she's not going to murder Glen Sickleman and then goes ahead playing to murder him and Peter seems completely oblivious to what's going on. He's not involved.

[00:59:36] I guess she doesn't wanna make him an accessory. Even though he knows already cause he's read the book. Look I don't fucking know. Okay but the other thing that's going on here is they start hitting these strings of

[00:59:47] when's the time for you to grow up and become a mother. Like Henry was being the parent now you gotta be the parent. And she keeps on saying my priority is I need to be a good mother for Peter which is why she's going to commit a crime

[00:59:59] that could lead to her getting put in jail leaving Peter with no family whatsoever. But it's also like it's this whole thing where she let him boss her around for so long so she's letting him boss her around from the afterlife.

[01:00:11] But in the tape Henry keeps on saying stuff like mom if you mess up on one detail they'll catch you. And it's like hey guess what if the stakes are this high how about double down on the one kid you got call the cops.

[01:00:22] Or just fucking call the cops and be like no for serious I'm a grown person cause the man is committing abuse. Well because the justification is right because they called the child services and it's the brother. Well then just get someone else or film it. If it's so-

[01:00:37] The camera! The curtain's open! You just sent him a fucking camera you can buy him. They're like nest cameras now you can get them for 300 bucks. I'm not one of these fucking cinemasons guys who likes to look there and go like

[01:00:51] well Juno could have just gotten an abortion. I agree, right? You don't want to be like- Fuck that. But this movie is asking you to believe that a mother would choose to follow the advice of her den 11 year old son

[01:01:02] and commit a murder because there is no other option even though their window is completely equidistant perfect view of where this abuse is always happening with curtains open take a fucking picture. Yeah. Anyway. They can't deny it but they don't do this. There's no other choice.

[01:01:17] Turn to the next page in the book why there's no other choice but to murder. Here's what happens she takes the two kids Christina the abuse victim and Peter. Well she goes to Dean Norris and she says do you have a will what happens if you die? Yeah.

[01:01:32] Because your wife is gone. In this very terse conversation. It's very weird and you can't figure out if they're implying that he killed the wife or what happened to the wife. And he's like no, haven't thought about it. She fakes his will or Henry has faked his will.

[01:01:43] She signs it. She gets a sign a form from him saying that she can bring Christina to the talent show. So she gets his signature forges the will that says Christina will live with her if he dies files that will. Christina has one line in that scene

[01:01:58] where she comes downstairs and she goes how school honey? It goes math is tough. Math is hard. So Christina's had three lines of dialogue at this point in the movie. And the whole way people committing murder to save her. You know, she's total profits terrible.

[01:02:10] And so here's what Naomi Watts does to commit the perfect murder. Takes these kids to the talent show leaves the talent show immediately drives back home where Dean Norris is just at home. Why couldn't he take the kids to the talent show? He's not doing anything.

[01:02:24] Because she doesn't make any fucking sense. He doesn't make any sense. Lures him out into the woods with a tape recorder. So he follows a noise. What's that noise out there? Oh, it's Henry's tape recorder. Lures him out into the woods. She's got her gun trained on him.

[01:02:39] Then she actually knocks over something to start another Rube Goldberg machine. He has set up. I mean, this is the moment that it's just patently ludicrous. So on the tape, he says, mom, it is very important that you do not make a wrong move.

[01:02:54] Do not make any noise. Immediately she farts. The Rube Goldberg machine goes off. And the Rube Goldberg machine is a three minute cycle. It's like a pool ball that goes down three racks. Right, right. And like a donkey kicks a fucking guava. Yeah, exactly.

[01:03:11] A game of Mario golf is played. And then finally, all this just to make some Polaroids. But for three minutes, this is going on in the background. She's there. She's like, oh boy, oh boy. Through the lens of the sniper rifle.

[01:03:27] Dean Norris is just standing, investigating this tape recorder tied to a branch not moving for three minutes. And then chica, chica, chica, chica, final step of the Rube Goldberg machine. It's a chain like a Jacob's ladder of Polaroid pictures of Henry at different ages. Yes.

[01:03:42] And I don't know why this exists. It's not related to the perfect murder. It's some other machine. Why would that be the payoff? No idea. Why would Henry tell her that the only place to commit the perfect murder is a place

[01:03:52] where if you move an inch, a Rube Goldberg machine will go off and make a lot of noise about a whizzing bell. She looks at these Polaroids and she realizes he was just a kid. Because when she drops them off at the talent show,

[01:04:05] where Peter's about to perform, right after his brother has died, his only friend, her surrogate daughter, the one she has the secret handshake with, right? Henry, Peter earlier in the movie says he wishes he had died instead of Henry. And she's like, that is not true.

[01:04:20] You were just as special to me as he is. But she's like so worried with this murder that she's not raising her son who's still alive. It's going to be really tough time. We don't have much time. How much time do we have? Oh, shit.

[01:04:30] We are nine minutes. OK. OK. Enough chatter. No, no. But this is important. This is important stuff. So the talent show, it's set up. This is important. The talent show. I know the talent show is important. You're going on about our dynamics with Peter.

[01:04:40] Like, we've got to get to the talent show. Peter's performing at the talent show. So is. These things are cross cutting as far as I can remember. Right. But one performance happens before one happens after. Tina happens first. So he's scribbling on some drawing at the wall,

[01:04:53] like defacing some other kid's art. And she's like, why are you doing that? And he's like, because Henry would have liked it. She's like, Henry's just a child. He wasn't right about everything. So when the Polaroid goes off, she's like, right. He was just a kid.

[01:05:03] Henry's just a child. I shouldn't kill someone because an 11-year-old whose dad left me a tape. So while she's like running, racing the clock, driving back to get to position to shoot him, you're seeing like a kid do a rap routine. You're seeing tap dancing.

[01:05:17] It's happening over now. Now dramatic like thriller music. And it's a car chasing. She gets there. And while she's debating whether to take the shot and the Rube Goldberg machine is going off, what's your name, Christine? Christina. Christina does ballet performance. Which is why they hired Maddie Ziegler

[01:05:32] because she's a dancer, except the dance routine is so overcut, so backlit, so poorly covered that it could have been anyone. No, but beyond that. That's not the problem with this. She starts cron- But I'm saying, it also defeats the purpose of passing that person.

[01:05:44] This is the scene. It's immortalized on the poster. It's supposed to be the emotional crux of the movie where Christina does this ballet routine that is essentially her externalizing her abuse. And she cries during it. Right, she is trying to represent through them

[01:06:01] the art of dance, how she feels about the fact that she's being sexually abused. And the principle is waiting in the wings watching with tears in her eyes. And she goes finally, that's the proof I need. What a dance is the evidence?

[01:06:16] This is the point at which everyone in the theater is cackling. Now I don't know about you because you're watching with like three old ladies. I saw with three old ladies in the theater. I don't think they're, but like every film critic

[01:06:26] in the audience is just fucking howling because how can you not? Like it is such a goddamn manipulative like trickly moment. And this is why I made this comment. It's so unearthed. About seemingly the principle has the only power in the entire movie because once she's convinced

[01:06:42] by this dance routine, her word is suddenly proof. No, no, no. What happens is she calls the whatever, she reports it. Okay, but at this point, Naomi Watts has walked out of the treehouse. These things are happening concurrently. Okay? Like really fast all of a sudden.

[01:06:55] Right, they play fast and loose with time because it also takes her like 20 minutes to drive to the treehouse for one mixed drive. Come on, come on, we know how much time. Okay, okay. So the principle goes off to make a phone call, right?

[01:07:06] Naomi Watts comes head to head with Dean Norr. She's holding this assault rifle. She puts the gun like down next to her. She doesn't even leave it in the tree house. And he's like, what's going on here? What are you doing?

[01:07:15] Not like, you have a gun, I can shoot you. Who made this treehouse? It's lovely. Is that a fridge? Yeah. He's like, what are you doing? And she's sort of like, I know what you're up to. I've seen you and he's like, you don't have any proof.

[01:07:31] You don't know what you're talking about. Who are you gonna believe? The chief of police or a single mother? And she's like, well, fuck you because I'm on it. And she's like, I'm calling the cops. And he's like, I'm calling the cops first.

[01:07:41] They're gonna fucking arrest you for slander. So she drives back to the talent show thinking that she's gonna get arrested. Thinking she's in trouble? For slander? I don't know. Whatever he says. Conspiracy, you know? It doesn't matter. Attempted murder. And then he goes back home

[01:07:54] and he gets a call from his brother or whoever, like some other cop where they're like, I gotta open this investigation. There's too much heat on this. He's glancing too much. I'm sorry. I can't hold it off anymore. And he's like sort of like, okay, okay.

[01:08:06] Puts it off, what does he do, Griffin? Well, cause as she's driving back to the talent show, you hear the sirens and she's like, oh fuck I gotta drop the cops. They're chasing me. Nope, those cops are going to his house because the principal called.

[01:08:17] He hears the sirens arrive outside his door. Ch-ch-ch. Pshh. Yeah. Yeah, saw that coming. Right. Okay. Oh, clean. The real perfect murder. So. She gets back to the talent show just in time as Peter's about to do his magic act as Peter the Great.

[01:08:34] Peter has said already, like Lee Pace asks, like what are you doing? Oh, cause she invites Lee Pace, the doctor. Yeah, the doctor's there. And he's like, what are you doing? He's like, I'm going to do a magic trick.

[01:08:41] Cause he wants his mom to get the D from the doctor. He gets on stage and he's like, I will bring my brother back to life. And everyone's like, oh. No, I know. I actually like this one because everyone in the theater and imagine being like, you know,

[01:08:54] this is small town, you know this kid's brother's dead. You're at the school talent show and suddenly like it's a real wild card. They're like, wait, what the fuck's this kid gonna do? I think he says I'm going to make my brother reappear. Maybe that's fine.

[01:09:03] And everyone's like, yeesh. It's like, is he going to take out a corpse? What the fuck is going on? He's got like a treasure. He's got a little top hat. He looks adorable. Jacob Tremblay rules. He's going to look like me in five years.

[01:09:14] But for now he's cute. Taps the chest with his wand. Chest blows open. What comes out? Soap flakes. Like the time. It's like the thing he did. And then they fall from the rafters. Like he set up bags throughout the school auditorium. He rigged the entire auditorium.

[01:09:28] Everyone's like, oh. Which mostly I think they're just like, oh thank God he didn't do something weird. But also they're plotting as if they're like, oh that famous Henry's climbing Mount Everest routine. Everyone knows about it. I think they're just happy he didn't like burst into tears.

[01:09:40] But it's not an impressive magic trick. Oh, I don't know. How do you get the flakes come out of the chest? You're a cynic. He put flakes in a check. Yeah, listen up man. And the flakes, they come out everywhere. Flake man they can call.

[01:09:52] No one in the audience that says no emotional resonance for them and they'd be like, how does this relate to his brother? Was he a soap flake fanatic? This fucking movie. Okay, so then they get out of the performance and she's flirting with Lee Pace

[01:10:02] and they see the cops and she's like, oh fuck. Okay, I'm going to get arrested. And then the principal is like, so Glenn Sekelman shot himself. Yeah, and they tell Christina and she has no reaction really because she's not a character in the movie and can act.

[01:10:15] And yes, she's not an actress and she's not a character. Cut to courthouse and the judge like voiceover from judge like I do declare God bless America that you will be the mother of her forever in perpetuity unbreakably. Inchalata number one, Inchalata number two. She's talking about men.

[01:10:34] High five, Christina has maybe two lines in this scene where she goes like, love you or like lights off. I'm happy now. Yeah, and she's reading them a story book that she wrote because we've forgotten in the first scene they vaguely established that she wants to write children.

[01:10:47] Yeah, and she reads them a children's story that she has written in Henry's like derivative. Yeah, characters are way too predictable. And now she reads it to the two kids who don't fucking suck. And they're like, that story is great mom.

[01:10:59] That's nice mom, thanks for writing a story for us rather than like reading Chicka Chicka boom boom again or whatever. And then she goes downstairs, does as you do the ritual burning of my dead son's book and audio tapes. So there's no evidence.

[01:11:14] And throwing away down a dam of the high powered rifle I spent $1,100 on. And then what's the last shot of the movie? Isn't it just the lights out thing? I think it's the lights out thing and then Stevie Nicks cover. Yeah. Take our hands up or down.

[01:11:31] How we doing? See my reflection. Two minutes. We did it. I mean, we did it. Did it. I mean that sounds like trash. Yeah. That's a real fucking movie. I can't even believe that that is a thing that's existing right now.

[01:11:47] It takes a couple left turns that one. Yeah, but I keep on hearing people talk about like the big twists in the movie and it's like, I don't think this is a twist movie. There's two twists. I think the twists are it does things that movies shouldn't do.

[01:12:00] Fine. But I mean, look, the trailers for example, one thing that's funny about the trailers is they do foreshadow that she's gonna buy a gun and try and kill this guy, but they don't tell you that Henry dies. So weirdly they hide the first twist

[01:12:13] but not the second twist. But I remember watching the trailer and being like it's so clear Henry dies because at a certain point in the trailer she's only reading his book and he's not there. I know, but the whole

[01:12:22] And she's saying like Henry wrote it all in the book. They're talking about him in a weird distant way. But like the thing about this movie was look, we all know Colin Trevor, he made Jurassic World and he gets episode nine. But then everyone's like,

[01:12:33] oh he did make this thing in between, book of Henry. And no one's excited, but it's not like, you know, you're like, oh this will be a bomb. I certainly didn't think it would be a bomb. I thought it'd be okay. Cause I remember saying that people

[01:12:46] I thought it'd probably be safe to not guarantee it. Like I don't like it, but at least it's a movie. It's more sucks, but whatever. And then the trailer posts and it's about like first half of the trailer is like an annoying kid

[01:12:55] and the second half of the trailer is like, now me watch murder. And you're like, everyone was like, what the fuck is this? Like that was sort of what happened. And then you see the movie and it's even crazier. The trailer didn't misrepresent the movie,

[01:13:06] it actually tried to make it look more normal than it is. And you're left wondering, what the fuck did he think he was making? Because it doesn't feel like this movie got away from him. It doesn't feel like he lost control. It feels like he greatly miscalculated

[01:13:22] the appeal of this story. And there were certain passages of dialogue that really fucking drove me into it. I got a literal headache watching this movie. And I had slept well, ate well, had no other reason other than this movie was hurting my brain.

[01:13:35] So I want to quote some specific passages of dialogue. And Emily Ashida sent me a PDF of the script, but it turned out to be a draft from like... Yeah, because the script's been kicking around forever. There it is, yeah. So I started leafing through the script

[01:13:49] to find the dialogue passages I was looking for and they weren't in there and started to realize, oh, Colin Trevor did a heavy rewrite on this or someone did. He changed the dialogue. So I looked through a lot of this dialogue and that script ain't good either.

[01:14:01] No, no, but a lot of logic apps like Peter is with her on the murder for the entire movie in that draft of the script. Which explains why he isn't just fucking ignored. Like there's certain things that track better. I can see why you take him out

[01:14:14] because it makes no sense even in the twisted logic of this movie. But it doesn't make sense either way. Nothing in the movie fucking makes sense. Who do you think this movie is for? No, well that's okay, look, here's my thinking.

[01:14:24] He read this script and he thought, this is crazy. Which is the only reason I assume this script's kicked around for so long. Where it's like, wow, if someone could really nail the basically halfway through turn of this movie from family drama into thriller,

[01:14:41] that'd be like nothing you'd ever seen before. Okay, but fundamental problem. Both halves of the movie as written are bad. Oh, I don't disagree! Like there's a jarring shift between the two. I know, but yeah, I'm just saying. I'm trying to, why else would you take this script?

[01:14:54] Well, I'll tell you my hot take. Okay. So far as I can tell, the one thing that seems to be like across the board in Con Trevor's career, his three movies that I don't like, but also all interviews I've read with him,

[01:15:05] is that he loves this idea of like upending audience expectations. Which is his defense of them murdering the assistant so horribly. Yeah. In Jurassic World. Right, he's really just trying to get a rise out of you. The ending of Safety Not Guaranteed,

[01:15:21] which is the opposite of what you think is gonna happen is him being like, hi, you thought this. Look, honestly, look. I don't like Safety Not Guaranteed and I don't like the ending, but I'll admit the reason that movie clicked for people and it's because of the ending.

[01:15:32] It's because the ending lands. Kathy Kennedy said that's the reason, or Steven Spurrick said that's the reason he gave him Jurassic World. They saw him like melding genre and realistic, I guess, whatever. It's a shitty movie to talk about. He's a guy who's really focused on aesthetics

[01:15:45] of the types of movies he likes and what type of movie he's trying to make, but he doesn't understand storytelling function at all. So he's attracted to things where it's like, well, the audience is expecting this, but I'm upending expectations. But it's like he's deconstructing things

[01:15:56] that haven't been constructed yet. Like he doesn't understand how to make something work in order to upend it. And so you're left with these situations where it's like, he thinks it's funny to have the secretary get murdered in Jurassic World because usually the villain gets brutally murdered

[01:16:14] and someone who's innocuous doesn't get hurt that bad. Not murdered. Dennis was told murder. The pterodactyls murder. She's killed. Brutally. Yeah, it's quite jarring. As I said, I have never seen a filmmaker have that much fun killing off a character since the end of Raiders of Lost Ark

[01:16:30] when all the Nazis have their faces melted off. Yeah, no, the punishment did not fit the crime. Right? But anyway. But I think what he likes about it was he was like, well, I was upending the expectations of genre work in this.

[01:16:40] And it's like, okay, but if you're not doing it for a reason other than to do the opposite of what people think you should be doing, then guess what? Either it doesn't work or the people who are enjoying it are enjoying it for the wrong reason.

[01:16:50] Because if someone's liking watching that woman get torn apart by dinosaurs, it's because they're like, yeah, fucking she sucks. She was trying to get married. Bridezilla! So to kind of connect it to this movie, do you think that he read the script and he was like,

[01:17:03] people never make movies about kids dying of cancer and then people getting murdered and molestation happening? I'm gonna make this to just blow people's minds. It'll surprise people. I think he was like, A, this is a screenplay chock full of things people aren't supposed to do in screenplays.

[01:17:21] Which to me feels like it's playing with the tropes and expectations when it's just badly conceptualized. Has he done any interviews about this movie? Yes, he has. I've read a bunch of them. There's a slash film one where he talks a lot about it. Like after? Yes.

[01:17:34] I mean, it was published this week presumably was an interview done after someone had seen a screening of the movie. And he said that was the whole thing was just like, you know, that twist is so crazy. And it's like, the audience has no idea

[01:17:47] what's gonna happen at the movie at that point. He just loves fucking with expectations. But that's his only trick. I know. I mean, honestly, I saw an interview with Naomi Watts where they asked her about it and she said the same thing where she's like,

[01:17:57] it's just so unexpected, like all the mix of tones and I really liked that. Yeah, guess what else is unexpected? 9-11. All right, what? What are you, what are you, that didn't land for me. I'm saying. This movie is, come on, relax, relax.

[01:18:11] Just because something isn't expected doesn't mean it's good. And this movie also, it subscribes to the theory that like if you put serious things in a movie, then the movie is important. If a movie has cancer and it has murder

[01:18:24] and it has molestation in it, then oh my God, it's a movie about real topics. Yeah, but I mean like, I'm reading this interview with him and yeah, I mean it's clearly my reading was right, which is he just thinks, hey man,

[01:18:37] there's nothing like this so if I get it right, like it'll be like nothing else anyone's ever seen and it'll stick out. But there's an arrogance to that, I guess obviously. And he strikes me as an arrogant man. When he talks about himself in his films,

[01:18:51] he is very self-opressed, very self-confident. That's fine. I agree with you, although again, I don't really want to kick the guy when he's down, but he, look he's down. He's about to fucking make Star Wars episode nine. I know, he's a little annoying, I will allow. But.

[01:19:06] He's getting away with it, the perfect crime. Even better than what Henry wrote. But beyond that, it's more like there's a difference between reading a bad script and saying, I can make a good movie out of this. Especially when he rewrote it to make it worse

[01:19:21] from an already terrible base. For fuck's sake, yes, we know you don't like the movie, but I'm saying he rewrote it trying to make it better, right? Like there's one, you can read a bad script and say, you know what, I could try

[01:19:32] to just totally rework this movie, make it good. Or you could read a bad script and be like, what's bad about this script is good, which is what he did. But also what I found in a lot of his rewrites were that things that were played

[01:19:46] a little more straight, right? Once it takes the turn and becomes a little darker, he tried to infuse some more jokes, some more lighthearted amblinisms too. Like he made it more tonally confused because he wanted this light touch. All the stuff with the inventions.

[01:20:03] The Rue Goldberg machine isn't in the original draft. He added all the whimsical elements. That's just his vibe, right? Because that's kind of what safety and the guarantee does work. But that's totally running counter to everything else the movie's doing.

[01:20:15] Yeah, but come on, it was always gonna be bad. I agree, but like- There's no good version of this movie. I agree, right? I agree, but his- Wait, is there? No. Like there's no director who's gonna look at this and be like, oh, I have the take.

[01:20:28] Like you'd have to totally gut it. Here's my take on that. The second Naomi Watts' character reads his plan to murder the guy, she goes, I am an adult, murder isn't the answer. I will figure out how to get him arrested. So I think there's no way-

[01:20:44] Right, but then you're gonna have a movie, right. I think what you said at the beginning, the only way you have a movie is if the movie is Henry, Wunderkin, super genius, who tries to pull off this murder and doesn't understand how the world works

[01:20:55] and realizes the limitations of his own knowledge. I think the second it does pass off to the mom having to commit the crime, it makes the character just implode. Because you're like, I can't take this woman seriously if she's actually going through with this.

[01:21:09] I have a big question for you. The question, let's play the box office game and then I have a question. And then we're done. This weekend's box office. Yeah, I mean we're recording this on Saturday so there are already estimates, but it looks like cars,

[01:21:23] I think cars could do around 50, 52. Yeah, I can either give you the Fridays or I can give you the box office estimates. I mean, it's actually an interesting week at the box office, but not because of the book. Cars like 52, Wonder Woman's could do like 40.

[01:21:36] All Eyes on Me is gonna do like 34, 35? 32 according to this. Yeah, so yeah, cars three, 51 not great. No, first cars I think open a 60, second one opens 70. Not great Bob. So it's the lowest. Not great Bob. The thing they always say about cars is like,

[01:21:56] it doesn't matter because it's the toys that sell. Okay, fine, fuck you. I think this is the last one they'll do. I think they'll just do specials and shit after this. Wonder Woman holding 32% for 40 million, that's very impressive. Wonderful hold.

[01:22:10] All Eyes on Me, the poorly reviewed Benny Boom Tupac biopic, but there's an audience for it that Hollywood does not serve so people are like after it. So despite the fact that this movie's barely been advertised, it's out of the box hit.

[01:22:24] Yeah, it's gonna make like twice its budget opening weekend. Number four, fucking Rough Night Flops, like 10 million. I'm hearing that or calling that the Mandy Moore shark movie's gonna end up doing more than Rough Night. It's like in a battle with the Mandy Moore.

[01:22:41] One's gonna do nine and one's gonna do 10. Hey, 47 meters down, who to thank? Which was supposed to be DTV, direct a video and then the shallows was such a hit they were like, sharks baby! And also this is us, NBC Thursdays. I think Mandy Moore star.

[01:22:57] Sure, Mandy, yes, yeah. And then at the bottom end of this you got the mummy doing very poorly, you got Pirates of the Caribbean, which is doing terribly. So how many screens does Book of Henry on? Book of Henry opened on 579 screens.

[01:23:11] It's probably gonna make about two million I think. Really? Yeah, 11, it's number 11 at the box office behind it. It comes at night. Okay. So that's pretty bad. What was the other question you were gonna ask? Will Colin Trevor make Star Wars colon episode IX? So X.

[01:23:29] So here's the argument I was making to my friends last night because a lot of people have said there's no way he gets fired off of it. Okay? Right. But I don't think it's even about how bad the reviews are.

[01:23:38] I don't think it's about whether this movie fought. It's more about like they can't admit they made a mistake. What the? That was alarming. Sorry, yeah, that's my ringtone. Oh cool. It's all timey card porn. Yeah, go ahead. I think this movie shows such a fundamental sense

[01:23:56] of misjudgment that is innate into him and his storytelling sensibilities that coming off of Force Awakens, which is the highest grossing film in history. Last Jedi, which they're apparently very happy with right now and happy with the job Ryan Johnson did to then give him the third film

[01:24:13] on what's the most important film franchise going on today is a big risk. And Hawkin, my friend said, it's sort of like if someone, a babysitter accidentally murdered someone else's kids and then called you up and were like,

[01:24:30] hey, am I still on the babysit your kids this weekend? And it's like, no, you just murdered a kid. It's like, well, but it wasn't your kid. Yeah, no, I know. I mean, to me, look, if he was making like Kevin Lincoln had a good article,

[01:24:41] friend of David Thames, Kevin Lincoln in Vulture that was like, it's not like Trank fucking up Fantastic Four because that's the main event. Fucking up the side event is not as bad. To me, the only argument is like, it's Star Wars Episode Nine.

[01:24:56] You have to deal with the death of Princess Leia. Yeah, you're dealing with Carrie Fisher dying, but it's the conclusion of this very popular so far series of films. And Kathy Kennedy got a strong grip, like kick Trank off, Gareth Edwards,

[01:25:10] she kind of put in the backseat for the reshoots. I mean, she doesn't fuck around. The only reason would be if there she was somehow worried, but I think there's more like a vanity to these producers that are like, no,

[01:25:20] this is the guy we like this guy, we pick this guy. Can I ask why? Because I don't understand he doesn't, I didn't see his like, you know, first feature. Some people like it. But why is he getting pushed up in the ranks onto this?

[01:25:33] I don't understand that at all. Is it because Spielberg likes him? You mentioned Brad Bird. These guys like him. He gave this feature that people liked and then he made Jurassic World, which was a surprise hit even by those things. But there's apparently very good in the room.

[01:25:46] He's one of these guys in a meeting who talks like he knows what he's doing. Sure, but there's like a million other filmmakers out there. Why is it this guy who's like made, I mean, you know, Jurassic World was really successful

[01:25:57] and that it made a lot of money. Ben, you're tapping right now into the perplexion idea. I don't get it every single morning when I wake up. I go, I don't understand how this happened. Well, look, it's just going to happen. I'll say this though.

[01:26:13] The steampunk treehouse sounds cool. We oversell that part. I should like tune in next week when Ben will be broadcasting from a steampunk treehouse. That's our new recording studio. I'm into that. So that's the book of Henry, The Pot of Davy.

[01:26:30] And it's my least favorite movie I've ever seen. It made me really, really angry. It's probably the worst film I've seen this year. It's very strange. It will stand, I think, the test of time as like a weird bad movie.

[01:26:44] I think so too. Rather than a regular bad movie. Especially if he goes on to continue having a successful career. It will be like, what the fuck is this movie? But I do think it will be swept under the rug practically. Like it's just gonna debut this week,

[01:26:56] it's gonna bomb, it'll be out of theaters within two or three weeks. And we're just not gonna talk about it. I'll just say this. I think if Colin Traverot still ends up directing Star Wars Episode IX, which I think unfortunately is likely,

[01:27:08] I imagine he'll be kept on a very, very short leash. Could be, sure. That would be my guess. Is that he stays on, but they kind of go like, okay, Colin, because I know they had to throw out the screenplay they already had after Carrie Fisher died.

[01:27:21] So they're pretty early on whatever they're working on now. You know who's writing the Star Wars Episode IX screenplay. Yes. Colin Traverot. And? Derek Connolly, is that his name? His co-writer. So let me just say, Star Wars Episode IX coming from the director of Book of Henry

[01:27:36] and the screenwriter of Monster Trucks. Yeah, that's right. Maybe Creech could have been in this. That would have been good. God, I still gotta meet Creech. You still haven't met him, huh? I haven't met him yet. I haven't met him either.

[01:27:46] Anyway, so next week, the films of Christopher Nolan. Well, hold on. Really quick. Yeah. Just for legal reasons, we should say to our listeners, we don't condone dick punching on this show. Yeah, no, we don't. Don't attack Colin Traverot, guys. He's just a person who makes movies.

[01:28:05] He's just a person. And if you happen to connect with his dick, your hand, and you're listening a bit, whatever, that's not on us. I'll say yes. I agree. Obviously, we have our fun. We do our bits. I don't actually think that anyone should punch

[01:28:20] Colin Traverot in the penis. Yeah, I'm sure he's fine. But I'll say this. If for whatever reason you were interested, go into the basement, open up the safe. I have left for you a bunch of mini cassettes. The code is 123. And I figured it out. The perfect crime.

[01:28:38] The perfect crime no one will ever see if Colin Traverot in the penis. You're going to need a Rube Goldberg puncher. And you got to throw a Rube penis machine. You got to throw the machine into the river when you're done. All right, that was the book ahead,

[01:28:53] and we because you demanded it. Oh, I hope you like it. Well, thanks. I mean, I wasn't going to see that movie, but I've definitely never ever ever go to. Don't know. Yeah, don't do it. Thank you for listening. Please remember to review and subscribe.

[01:29:08] Yeah, go to blankies.reddit.com for some nerdy shit. Sure. Thanks to Andra Guido for our social media. Thank you to Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for artwork. Yeah, Lee Montgomery for our theme song. And as always, this is why there is no other option

[01:29:31] than punching Colin Traverot in the penis.