• Photo gallery
• News feed
• Official website
• Internet Movie Database
• Wikipedia
• Stream on iTunes
• Purchase on Amazon

Single suburban mother Susan works as a waitress at a diner, alongside feisty friend Sheila. Her younger son Peter is a playful 8-year-old. Taking care of everyone and everything is Susan’s older son Henry, age 11. Protector to his adoring younger brother and tireless supporter of his often self-doubting mother – and, through investments, of the family – Henry blazes through the days like a comet. Susan discovers that the family next door, which includes Henry’s kind classmate Christina, has a dangerous secret – and that Henry has devised a surprising plan to help. As his brainstormed rescue plan for Christina takes shape in thrilling ways, Susan finds herself at the center of it.

Gallery

See more photos from this film in the gallery!

Full Plot Summary

In a small suburban town in the Hudson Valley, eleven-year-old boy genius Henry Carpenter and his younger brother Peter are being raised by their single mother Susan, a waitress who is working on writing children’s picture books. Henry has used his intellect to invest successfully in the stock market, building up a very substantial nest egg for his family. Henry also protects Peter from a school bully and builds Rube Goldberg machines in their tree house. Henry and Susan are both fond of their next-door neighbor and Henry’s classmate, Christina Sickleman, who has recently become glum.

Henry sees Christina being abused by her stepfather, Glenn, the local police commissioner. Henry reports the abuse to social services and the school principal, Janice Wilder, but Glenn has connections throughout the local government, and Wilder is reluctant to challenge the commissioner without “conclusive evidence”. Henry is unable to get the authorities to launch a serious investigation that would protect Christina. Henry tells his mother that when someone is in trouble, those who can help must take action. He develops a detailed plan to rescue Christina that he memorializes in a notebook. After a violent seizure, Henry is taken to the hospital, where he is diagnosed with a brain tumor and undergoes surgery. Anticipating his death, he tells Peter to give Susan the notebook. Days later, Henry dies in Susan’s arms in the hospital.

Susan is distraught at Henry’s death and has difficulty functioning, but when Peter gives her the notebook, she focuses on Henry’s plan. Susan tries, but fails, to interest a nearby social services agency in opening an investigation. One night, from the window in Peter’s bedroom, she sees Glenn in Christina’s room and decides to carry out the plan. The notebook and an accompanying cassette tape describe Henry’s step-by-step plan to kill Glenn with a sniper rifle while covering Susan’s tracks so that it will be impossible to trace the murder back to her. Susan’s alibi is to be provided by executing the murder while both Christina and Peter are performing at a school talent show.

Susan slips away from the talent show and puts the plan into motion. As she is about to pull the trigger, she realizes that Henry’s plan, though ingenious, is the construct of a child, and that she must act as an adult. She immediately confronts Glenn and tells him that she is going to expose him for what he has done to Christina. Glenn replies that everyone will believe him, not her, and he tells her that he is going to call his police chief to come and bring her in. At the same time, affected by Christina’s dance performance at the talent show, Principal Wilder decides to follow through on the abuse accusation and contacts the authorities. Glenn returns home, calls his relative at Social Services, and learns that an investigation is being opened into his abuse of Christina. As the police arrive at his house, Glenn kills himself. Susan legally adopts Christina as her daughter. She also finishes writing one of her children’s books, as Henry had urged her to do.

Production

Gregg Hurwitz wrote the first draft of the screenplay by 1998. The film was eventually optioned by Jenette Kahn, and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment joined as a producer. An executive at Kimmel Entertainment thought that Colin Trevorrow would be right to direct The Book of Henry. Though Trevorrow and Hurwitz found each other to be congenial, Trevorrow was hired to direct Jurassic World and another director was considered. By early 2015, after Trevorrow finished Jurassic World, he returned to The Book of Henry. Kimmel Entertainment and Double Nickel Entertainment financed and co-produced the film, and Focus Features obtained worldwide distribution rights.

Principal photography on the film began in September 2015 in and around New York City before concluding in November. The music was composed by Michael Giacchino, and Stevie Nicks sang a new song for the film.

Reception

The Book of Henry was originally scheduled to be released on September 16, 2016, but Focus rescheduled the film’s release to June 16, 2017 after concluding that during the summer, the film release schedule would offer fewer adult-oriented films to compete against the film.

The film ultimately premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 14, 2017, two days before its wide release. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $1.4 million from 579 theaters (an average of $2,460 per theater), finishing 13th at the box office. The film was featured at the July 2017 Ischia Film Festival, where Colin Trevorrow was honored with the Breakout Director award for the film.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 22% based on 134 reviews.

Trailer