Henry Poole Is Here is a crazy good little movie, but some smart viewers are likely to accuse it of peddling Christianity, and therefore, reject it. But that's not what Mark Pellington's film is doing. Rather, it's taking the classic Weekly World News chestnut of the image of Christ seen in a waffle, and rather than treating it as comic fodder, instead asking the question: "What if?" The holy host is actually not a waffle, but a water stain on a stucco wall of a suburban California ranch house. But it encourages one of those great science-vs.-faith dialogues that always nourishes the mind, regardless of a person's affiliation. Pellington has put a huge amount of thought into constructing this movie, and the result is a hidden gem enriched by a perfectly selected soundtrack.
In a performance no one would guess he could give, Luke Wilson plays a depressed man who buys a ramshackle house at full asking price, dropping hints he won't be there long. Screenwriter Albert Torres smartly holds back the cause of Henry's malaise -- just one example of the script's knack for producing information at exactly the right moment. But Wilson gives his all to both this malaise and his character's deeply felt skepticism, never resembling the guy who sleepwalks through his less demanding roles. Because of this performance, the others around it are even stronger -- the nosy neighbor who first identifies the supposed "face of God" (Adriana Barraza), the gawky grocery clerk who pries into Henry's sadness (Rachel Seiferth), the little girl who seeks meaning by tape recording conversations (Morgan Lily), and her mother (Radha Mitchell), who wonders when the girl might talk again. Lily in particular displays ridiculous talents for an actress her age. What's brilliant about Pellington's film is that this paint splotch is never clearly Christ, nor clearly not Christ -- sometimes it's a glimpse of a possible savior, other times it looks like a bunch of runny lines. Henry Poole Is Here isn't here to make up your mind for you. It just exists to expand it.