Saturday, September 29, 2018

Review on Film "The Book of Henry"


SYNOPSIS/ BACKGROUND/ AUTHOR OF THE BOOK OF HENRY

This film story, The Book of Henry is American drama film. The story was directed by Colin Trevorrow and written by Gregg Hurwitz. It was well played by Jaeden Lieberher who took the main character in the story as whiz kid name Henry Carpenter. Meanwhile, the little brother of Henry Carpenter character which is Peter Carpenter was played by Jacob Tremblay and the actress name Xiaomi Watts play the single mother character, Susan Carpenter in the story. The film was noted to be premiered at the Los Angeles Film on June 14, 2017 and officially released in theatres by Focus Feature on June 16, 2017.

“The Book of Henry (2017)”, it is a tale story of genius kid name Henry Carpenter (Jaeden Lieberher)  who Henry lived together with his feisty, affectionate, video gaming playing single mom, Susan (Naomi Watts) and his little brother, Peter (Jacob Tremblay). Her single mother works as waitress in diner while funnily this brainy 11 years old kid, Henry goes to school into a normal school but at the same time he is someone who has this unimaginable of ‘know everything’ about everything. He knows how to handle and play with the stock market and win it. Not even that, he handles almost everything, include the financial of the house. It is something in which can be seen that it is totally beyond of him pulling his weight but his mother totally rely on him on things which also include with house bills until she can’t cope to all of it by her own will, especially after Henry started to fall sick. Henry need to cope with his sudden disease that has connection with his brain. Side of this film story, it may goes with the fact there is an abuser neighbour, from the next door house. The girl name Christina was getting abused by her stepfather, Glen who is also police commissioner. None alternative can be carry out after Henry failed to make the social protective worker and principal to get involved with Christina's abuse case, thus surprisingly, Henry has written inside of this one red notebook which tell the whole plan of him to murder Glen and he is totally plan it out for her mother to proceed the murder. The details plan was carried out by his mother, Susan but unfortunately the murder plan was not done by Susan because she just realized that Henry is just not different like other children who seems to follow up with emotions and making unwise decision when doing something.


COMMENTS/ CRITICS/ REVIEW ON THE BOOK OF HENRY

Based on this film, it seems like the character Henry more mature than his childish mother who throws herself into the video games. Henry even lectures on her mother, Susan on parenting stuff in which he knows the best. For the viewers who still don’t get any chance to watch the film and only watch the film trailer might saying Henry is totally a caring child towards her mother and caring older brother to his little brother, Peter, however, sometimes Henry can be such a judgemental whiz kid. It can be seen through in the classroom scene where Henry was mocking his classmate’s dream which is becoming a dodge ball champion. Frankly, it can be quite annoying on how he becoming the unendurable kid who know-it-all.

It is badly enough to find out that Henry suddenly got sick as he had brain tumour in the film and the possibilities of him to survive was very low. On the second thought, I think the main reason for God letting the pain and disease on the innocent child like Henry due to the intention on wanting Susan realise that it is her turn now to play her role as Henry’s mother. Plus, it is will be a life lesson for both Henry and Susan too, as Henry sometimes can be over-exaggerate on himself as the genius kid and Susan was depending too much on Henry from the start was totally wrong.

On the positive side, Henry really has such good intention on helping his mother especially on the home financial. He just wants her mother, Susan to stop working as waitress in the diner while having the financial comfort and not to forget to buy any nice things for their family. Henry even willing to handle and pay all the house bills and make his family rich with his investments on the stock market since he is a genius stock marketer. However, with the good intention that he had towards her mother, at the same time, we as the readers might feel like he was undermining Susan’s independence to be Henry and Peter’s mother and parents to both of them. In addition, Susan is also at her fault as she is the one who supposedly should not letting the role as their mother completely to her child, Henry.

Furthermore, on the good side, it is truly glad to know that Henry was willing to help his classmate, Christina from her abuser father. From there, we can see that Henry hate to see people around him getting hurt and he always want to put everyone in ease no matter what. According to some scenes from the film, it clearly shows that there are many efforts that has been done by Henry just to help Christina. He even wrote the plan that he had on his mind into his secret red notebook just to kill Christina’s stepfather, Glen. Fortunately, he is not the one who carried out the steps of the plan or he might end up with consequences by being the one who will be punished and enter the juvenile school instead.

But, he told his little brother to give their mother’s the red notebook which include tape and those outline plan, which means, Henry was totally full of intention to kill Glen no matter what and scarily, he might immediately carry out the plan if he is still alive and survive from the brain tumour. He also might done it without people consent especially his family. Thus, obviously this is the real proof to the audiences with the fact that even though the genius kid like Henry who are good in mathematics, financial stuff and stock market, he also can do some stupid and unwise decisions in his life, because after all, he is only 11 years old kid.

There is still one touching sibling’s moment in the hospital scene where both Henry and Peter had some quick and teary conversation. The moment when Henry told Peter to give their mother his notebook he stress on his sentence, “You need to do this. You’re the person that I trust the most.” From his sentence, it can be see that family is important and his mother doesn’t have anyone else besides Peter if there is anything happen on him. He even reminded Peter to take a good care on their mother.

In addition, we should not forget to how Susan try her best to find other option than easily full fill Henry’s dying wish to kill Glen. Henry is really being creepy with the fact that he done the research and completely details on finding the right bullet, gun and give the exact shooting position to shoot Glen from the house tree. There is one scene where Susan unexpectedly saw Glen was entering Christina’s room in the night. She was freaking out so she quickly reached for the phone and dialled her neighbour, Glen. All she wants to do is to save Christina from getting abuse and rap by Glen. I bet there is also the moment where she decided to proceed with Henry’s ridiculous and psycho murder plan while listening to Henry’s instruction tape carefully.

It is actually too bad that Henry refuses to enter the special school. There is one scene in the classroom in which his homeroom teacher asked Henry to remind her the reason why he refuses to change to the special whiz school. It can be seen that Henry do has his own reason to refuse it so nobody can blocked him away. Frankly, Henry might learn and experience something new if someone do place him on the right school. Plus, Henry also deserve to get a chance to blast his brilliant brain and investment skills and he might develop more than that if he get to sit among other brainy kids. He is not supposed to handle the house bills all alone at this such young age.


CONCLUSION ON THE BOOK OF HENRY

In summary, the movie was actually a charming, adventurous and amazing story film in spite of the many of bad reviews. There are many messages include the positives and negatives but too bad for the film critics to miss such a great movie. From overall characters, we can see Susan is actually do trying hard to become good single parent for Peter and Henry even though she do admit sometimes she is not a good in parenting for Henry. Susan really trying to work on things that sometimes life can be such demanding towards her. Meanwhile, Peter, he always admiring and idolizing his genius brother, Henry but at the same time, the moment when Susan was breaking down towards Henry’s health, Peter was the one who lift up the spirit of her mother by saying, “Don’t do what Henry do. Do what you will do” and he keep repeating to Susan, “Don’t be a childlike.” No to forget, the main character, Henry, he is truly an amazing person because he is not only brainy, he is also genius with a giant heart and he has this sensitivity that goes beyond of his age. He understand adult’s feelings and he knows exactly how her mother and little brother felt after seeing on the hospital bed.

Furthermore, there is not much of violence in the story due to no scene was shown in the film to represent the abusing of child but the worse part of the film is the language itself, not strong language but still the characters used the bad words in their dialogue. It is pretty inappropriate when the children also watches the film together with their parents in cinema. Last but not least, the critical and central question that suits the best together for this film will be “Who’s the ‘Parent’, who’s the ‘Child’?”, it might can be so called the unexpectedly different kind of “coming of age” movie. It is truly the story that absolutely filled with love and has a very positive message to catch on.





Monday, September 17, 2018

Not Going that Well

17 September 2018

Today I managed to read one article of Life Writing. I understand slightly from overall. After had one apple for breakfast, I grab my sling bag and went straight to library. I thought I want to log into the university system and print it but the computer room was closed today. I almost forgotten about the closure during the public holiday. Thus I was ended up sitting in between of book shelves and dived inside of every books that I picked up. 

I found a lot of interesting books, all about writing stuff. I learnt a lot about those. I was not thinking many times in the library and I went straight to buy two sets of plain white rice for my lunch and dinner. I think I was slowly learn how to manage my finance. But I need a lot of practice and control over it. The uncle who sells food from the food truck recognize me, I felt fortunate enough that he recognize me. I mean like, I must have done something to bring such attention from him to me. I used to buy once from him but he recognize me right away…That was totally nice.

After I went home, I washed myself up and also my clothes but unfortunately, the rain suddenly started to pour, it was raining cats and dogs for a while before the sun came back. I reheated the Tom Yam soup from yesterday for today lunch, and eat those while watching YouTube.
I was laying down on bed and out of blue my roommate came by to the room. And guess what, I received one compliment from my roommate’s friend, “Oh yang ini yang kelakar tu ha? Blusher!”

Gosh! It supposed to be Blushy, not Blusher!

Exactly on 9:00pm, I received the Whatsapp message from my boyfriend. He was quite complaining that he was working very hard, skip eating meals, not having enough sleep too. It was quite worrisome and I hope everything is ease for him. Sometimes I wonder why he was working very hard, what’s the money all for? I don’t think it is about us, I don’t think it is about our marriage saving. Or is it because he has financial problem? 

I just hope he is not working too hard until he fall sick. I hate seeing people I love getting sick especially him. He even complained that his body is hurt. I even message my other friend what ‘body senak-senak’ means actually… but none of them can give the correct answer that I am willing to hear it. I even asked my mother some advices on what should I do with him but the most and best answer will be to support him no matter what, be there for him and try to help him. I love you my man. God will protect you if He wills it.

Sunday, September 16, 2018

My Best Moments in September before its end!


16 September 2018

I woke up earlier than usual. I saw my roommate Fitri was rushing to get ready to go out. I have no idea where she went until the moment Nurul told me about Pasar Pagi. Surprisingly, this is my first time to her about the Pasar Pagi thingy. 

Still on the bed, so I took a quick peep on another roommate who slept across my bed.  She was not on the bed, literally she also already woke up earlier than me and she had already shower. Actually today my college held these game activities for the students. It was called as Permainan Tradisional, there were a lot of interesting games include; Lawan Pemadam, Kerusi Beracun, Campak Lidi, Dam, Chess, Scrabble, Soccer ball paper, galah panjang and last but not least, Batu Seremban.
 
Exactly 10:00 am, I went for the games together with Nurul. And that was the moment when she shared the story about the Pasar Pagi. As soon as we have arrived there, we got ourselves registered on the main entrance. We were exposed about mini games too, such as Lanun. We kindly interested on that, but unfortunately we did not played it at all. Literally, Nurul and I were separated with one another. She went to play the Lawan Pemadam game and meanwhile me, I registered myself on playing Scrabble.

At first I thought nobody want to play along with me but then, these 3 fellow guys were volunteering to play scrabble together with me. They are somehow kind of bad at the game except this one fellow quiet guy. He totally quiet but when he tried to create one word he was absolutely the best. He seemed has very good sense. Surprisingly, he was the gentleman type because he helped me figure out new place to put my word. The game’s vibe sort of boring but we were relied on each other when we were in difficulty. 

And guess what, I won the first place, I got 222 points and beat them all. Another good news, Nurul also won the Lidi game.

I just found out that the winners need to gather at one place at 4pm, so that they can finalized the real winners among the previous winners. Unfortunately, not many of Scrabbles winners were coming down to play the game, thus I was being compete with a few people and again, I WON THE FIRST PLACE and I AM THE 2018 SCRABBLE CHAMPION!

I got two prizes in total, I received the smart pen together with 2012 Calendar and UiTM T-shirt. I was kindly disappointed because I received the stock items that were totally left out in UiTM store room.

The best part of today game event was that I could get more close with my guy friends and JPK friends, they totally ‘masuk air type of friend. Some of them treat each other with equality. We are one and nobody can break those walls!

Plus, surprisingly, my eldest was coming to my University place together with Adib. I love the fact Adib is tagging along with my sister. She brought me daging salai, apples and happily she bought me white rice and Tom Yam soup and Adib bought me 3 pieces of Apam Balik. I was thankful with these kind people around me. 

Not to forget, I gave 4 apples to Nurul because she was so keen to eat one on the previous days. I don’t know why but whenever I did good deeds, automatically there will be sincere smile on my face. I felt happy. Truly delightful on my deed!


Review on Film "The Book of Henry"

SYNOPSIS/ BACKGROUND/ AUTHOR OF THE BOOK OF HENRY This film story, The Book of Henry is American drama film. The story was directed ...

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