Regarding Henry (1991)

(In French, On Cable TV, August 2022) You don’t watch Regarding Henry for the plot. From a very early point, you’ll be able to recognize and anticipate everything that’s going to happen, the middle-class values it espouses as being obvious and the sub-threads that will illustrate that thesis. Even in execution, this is the kind of film that shouts its foreshadowing, leaves no emotional trigger unfired and takes forever to get to its most obvious plot points (“Ritz!”). It is close to the epitome of a very specific kind of Hollywood drama that passes off bromides as earth-shattering revelations, treats lower-class people as likable tools for the middle-class and hypocritically seems to reject the ideology of the super-rich as aggressive. In a few words, the plot has to do with a super-powered high-class lawyer with no morals who is shot in the head during a convenience store robbery and then, thanks to amnesia, has to rebuild himself from the ground up. You will not be surprised to see the new him be disgusted at the old him, or actions related to that shift being Regarding Henry’s climax. Casting Harrison Ford in that lead role is both a coup and a curse—1991-vintage Ford could project confidence-becoming-arrogance like few others, and his very reserved acting style serves him well in the lengthy middle part of the film, where he’s a catatonic mute gradually learning everything again. It’s in the later part of the film that Ford’s acting limitations become more obvious—but by that point we’re supposed to be deeply invested anyway. Annette Benning does have a more challenging role as the wife undergoing her own trials as her husband rebuilds himself—and she does look great in a curly red hairdo. But while very little of the film’s description so far may seem appealing, it’s a measure of veteran director Mike Nichols’ expertise (working from a script by J. J. Abrams—yes, that J. J. Abrams—who also has a small role here) that the film feels rather watchable throughout. Despite fundamental flaws that would have toppled a more cynical approach to the film’s direction, Nichols makes Regarding Henry work, somehow, even when he’s slumming. It’s far too manipulative to be anything but adequate, but at least it rises to that level—which wasn’t necessarily a done deal had anyone else had helmed it. It’s clear that a better script would have featured more interesting justifications about the ideology of the super-driven Manhattan lawyer, or how the child is the father of the man (all over again) or believable dramatic arcs for people surrounding the protagonist or, well, anything better than the Ritz thing. “Watchable” may not feel like much of a compliment, but considering where Regarding Henry started from and the multiple hurdles it throws in its own path, it will have to do.