Regarding Henry

Last updated

Regarding Henry
Regarding henry ver1.jpg
Promotional release poster
Directed by Mike Nichols
Written by Jeffrey Abrams
Produced byMike Nichols
Scott Rudin
Starring
Cinematography Giuseppe Rotunno
Edited by Sam O'Steen
Music by Hans Zimmer
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date
  • July 12, 1991 (1991-07-12)
Running time
107 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$25 million [1]
Box office$87.9 million

Regarding Henry is a 1991 American drama film directed by Mike Nichols and written by J.J. Abrams. It stars Harrison Ford as a New York City lawyer from a dysfunctional family, who struggles to regain his memory and recover his speech and mobility after he survives a shooting, inadvertently restoring his family's integrity in the process.

Contents

The supporting cast includes Annette Bening, Mikki Allen, Bill Nunn, Rebecca Miller, Bruce Altman and Elizabeth Wilson. The film received mixed reviews with praise for the cast and Ford's performance but criticized for its sentimentality and manipulativeness. The film grossed $88 million at the box office on a production budget of $25 million.

Plot

Ambitious, callous, narcissistic, and at times unethical, Henry Turner is a wealthy successful Manhattan lawyer whose obsession with his work leaves him little time for his socialite wife, Sarah, and troubled preteen daughter, Rachel. He has just won a malpractice suit, defending a hospital against a plaintiff who claims, but is unable to prove, that he warned doctors about a pre-existing condition.

Running out to a convenience store to buy cigarettes one night, Henry is shot when he interrupts a robbery. One bullet hits his right frontal lobe, while the other hits his left subclavian artery, causing excessive internal bleeding and cardiac arrest. He experiences anoxia, resulting in brain damage.

Henry survives but can neither move nor talk and he suffers retrograde amnesia. While in a nursing facility, he slowly regains movement and speech with the help of a physical therapist named Bradley. Henry's recovery creates a financial burden for the family. Upon returning home, Henry is almost childlike. As he forges new relationships with his family, he realizes he does not like who he once was.

Sarah enrolls Rachel in an out-of-town elite school, though she is now reluctant to go. At orientation, Henry tells Rachel a lie to help her adjust to the new school. He and Sarah grow closer, as they were when they first met. Henry also misses Rachel.

Henry's firm allows him to return out of deference to his previous contributions. Sarah suggests they relocate to a smaller, less expensive residence. As his firm essentially assigns him only low-level work, he realizes he no longer wants to be a lawyer. While at a dinner party, they overhear several "friends" making derogatory comments about him.

Henry, finding a former colleague's letters to Sarah disclosing they had an affair, becomes angry and leaves home. He is confronted by Linda, a fellow attorney, who reveals they were having an affair and that he was going to leave Sarah. Henry has second thoughts about himself and his relationships.

Henry gives the documents that his firm suppressed to the plaintiff that proves their case, and he apologizes. He then resigns from the firm. He realizes that, as Sarah had said, everything had been wrong before but it is now so much better. They reconcile, then go to Rachel's school and withdraw her. She is overjoyed to be with her parents. As they leave the building, she tosses her school-uniform hat away.

Cast

Production

The film was shot on location in New York City, White Plains, and Millbrook. [1]

Music

Original soundtrack

Regarding Henry: Music From the Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on August 6, 1991 on Capitol Records/EMI Records. [2]

Regarding Henry:
Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack
Soundtrack album by
Hans Zimmer
ReleasedAugust 6, 1991 (1991-08-06)
RecordedMid 1990 - Early 1991
Studio Media Ventures Studio
(Los Angeles, California)
Right Track Recording
(Manhattan, New York)
Genre Film score, instrumental pop, doo-wop, soft rock
Length37:39
Label Capitol/EMI
Producer Hans Zimmer, Jay Rifkin

Track listing

  1. "Walkin' Talkin' Man"
  2. "A Cold Day in NY"
  3. "Blowfish"
  4. "Ritz"
  5. "Henry Vs Henry"
  6. "Ritz Part II"
  7. "I Don't Like Eggs"
  8. "Gotta Get Me Some of That"
  9. "Central Park, 6PM"
  10. "Buddy Grooves"

Personnel

Reception

Critical reception

Initial critical reception was mainly lukewarm to negative. Vincent Canby of The New York Times described the film as "a sentimental urban fairy tale" that "succeeds neither as an all-out inspirational drama nor as a send-up of American manners." [3]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film two out of four stars and commented, "There is possibly a good movie to be found somewhere within this story, but Mike Nichols has not found it in Regarding Henry. This is a film of obvious and shallow contrivance, which aims without apology for easy emotional payoffs, and tries to manipulate the audience with plot twists that belong in a sitcom." Ebert also described the way it makes a connection between Ritz Crackers and the Ritz-Carlton hotel (which reveals that Henry's affair had in fact been deeply embedded in his apparently lost memories) as "especially annoying", apparently regarding it as comic. [4]

Rita Kempley of The Washington Post called the film "a tidy parable of '90s sanctimony" [5] while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone described it as a "slick tearjerker" that "has a knack for trivializing the big issues it strenuously raises." However, he praised Ford's performance. [6]

Variety , however, called the film "a subtle emotional journey impeccably orchestrated by director Mike Nichols and acutely well acted." [7]

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a "Rotten" 49% rating based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Although Harrison Ford makes the most of an opportunity to dig into a serious role, Regarding Henry is undermined by cheap sentiment and clichés." [8] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 47 out of 100 based on 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [9] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale. [10]

Box office

The film opened in 800 theaters in the United States on July 12, 1991, and grossed $6,146,782 on its opening weekend, ranking seventh at the US box office. It eventually grossed $43,001,500 in the United States and Canada. [11] It grossed $44.9 million internationally for a worldwide total of $87.9 million. [12]

Accolades

The London Film Critics' Circle named Annette Bening Newcomer of the Year for her work in Regarding Henry, in addition to the films Guilty by Suspicion , The Grifters , Valmont and Postcards from the Edge . [13] The film was nominated for the Young Artist Award for Best Family Motion Picture - Drama, and Mikki Allen was nominated Best Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture. [14]

Home media

The film was released on Region 1 DVD on September 9, 2003. [15] It is in anamorphic widescreen format with audio tracks in English and French and subtitles in English. Australian premium label Imprint Films released the film on Blu-ray in April 2021. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>The Graduate</i> 1967 romantic comedy drama film by Mike Nichols

The Graduate is a 1967 American independent romantic comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols and written by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham, based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The film tells the story of 21-year-old Benjamin Braddock, a recent college graduate with no well-defined aim in life who is seduced by an older married woman, Mrs. Robinson, but then falls for her daughter, Elaine.

<i>Witness</i> (1985 film) 1985 American neo-noir crime drama film by Peter Weir

Witness is a 1985 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Peter Weir, and starring Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis and Lukas Haas, with Jan Rubeš, Danny Glover, Josef Sommer, Alexander Godunov, Patti LuPone and Viggo Mortensen in supporting roles. The film focuses on a police detective (Ford) protecting an Amish woman (McGillis) and her young son (Haas), who becomes a target after he witnesses a brutal murder in a Philadelphia railway station.

<i>Cruel Intentions</i> 1999 American romantic drama film by Roger Kumble

Cruel Intentions is a 1999 American teen romantic drama film written and directed by Roger Kumble and starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon, and Selma Blair. The film is a modern retelling of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' 1782 novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, set in New York City among rich high schoolers.

<i>Working Girl</i> 1988 film by Mike Nichols

Working Girl is a 1988 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols, written by Kevin Wade, and starring Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, and Melanie Griffith. Its plot follows an ambitious secretary from Staten Island who takes over her new boss's role while the boss is laid up with a broken leg. The secretary, who has been going to business night school, pitches a profitable idea, only to have the boss attempt to take credit.

<i>Peggy Sue Got Married</i> 1986 film by Francis Ford Coppola

Peggy Sue Got Married is a 1986 American fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola starring Kathleen Turner as a woman on the verge of a divorce, who finds herself transported back to the days of her senior year in high school in 1960. The film was written by husband-and-wife team Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner.

<i>Flatliners</i> 1990 film by Joel Schumacher

Flatliners is a 1990 American science fiction psychological horror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Michael Douglas and Rick Bieber, and written by Peter Filardi. It stars Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt, and Kevin Bacon. The film is about five medical students who attempt to find out what lies beyond death by conducting clandestine experiments that produce near-death experiences. The film was shot on the campus of Loyola University Chicago between October 1989 and January 1990, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Editing in 1990. The film was theatrically released on August 10, 1990, by Columbia Pictures. It grossed $61 million at the box office.

<i>Outbreak</i> (film) 1995 film directed by Wolfgang Petersen

Outbreak is a 1995 American medical disaster film directed by Wolfgang Petersen and written by Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland, and co-stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Kevin Spacey and Patrick Dempsey.

<i>Dead Ringers</i> (film) 1988 film by David Cronenberg

Dead Ringers is a 1988 psychological thriller film starring Jeremy Irons in a dual role as identical twin gynecologists. David Cronenberg directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Snider. Their script was based on the lives of Stewart and Cyril Marcus and on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland, a "highly fictionalized" version of the Marcuses' story.

<i>Presumed Innocent</i> (film) 1990 film by Alan J. Pakula

Presumed Innocent is a 1990 American legal thriller film based on the 1987 novel of the same name by Scott Turow. Directed by Alan J. Pakula, and written by Pakula and Frank Pierson, it stars Harrison Ford, Brian Dennehy, Raúl Juliá, Bonnie Bedelia, Paul Winfield and Greta Scacchi. The film follows Rusty Sabich (Ford), a prosecutor who is charged with the murder of his colleague and mistress Carolyn Polhemus (Scacchi). This is the first film role for Jeffrey Wright.

<i>Forever Young</i> (1992 film) 1992 film by Steve Miner

Forever Young is a 1992 American fantasy romantic drama film directed by Steve Miner and starring Mel Gibson, Elijah Wood, and Jamie Lee Curtis. The screenplay was written by J. J. Abrams from an original story named "The Rest of Daniel".

<i>The Fugitive</i> (1993 film) 1993 American film by Andrew Davis

The Fugitive is a 1993 American action thriller film, directed by Andrew Davis with a script co-written by Jeb Stuart and David Twohy, from a previous story draft which Twohy had written. Based on the 1960s television series of the same name, the film stars Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward, Joe Pantoliano, Andreas Katsulas, and Jeroen Krabbé.

<i>Grand Canyon</i> (1991 film) Film by Lawrence Kasdan

Grand Canyon is a 1991 American drama film directed and produced by Lawrence Kasdan, and written by Kasdan with his wife Meg. Featuring an ensemble cast, the film is about random events affecting a diverse group of people, exploring the race- and class-imposed chasms which separate members of the same community.

<i>8 Heads in a Duffel Bag</i> 1997 black comedy film by Tom Schulman

8 Heads in a Duffel Bag is a 1997 black comedy film starring Joe Pesci, Kristy Swanson and David Spade. It was the directorial debut of screenwriter Tom Schulman. The film was a box office disappointment and received negative reviews from critics.

<i>Heartbreak Hotel</i> (film) 1988 film by Chris Columbus

Heartbreak Hotel is a 1988 American comedy film written and directed by Chris Columbus, and stars David Keith and Tuesday Weld. Set in 1972, the story deals with one of the many "legends" involving Elvis Presley (Keith) about his fictional kidnapping, and his subsequent redemption from decadence.

<i>Spontaneous Combustion</i> (film) 1990 film by Tobe Hooper

Spontaneous Combustion is a 1990 American science fiction horror film directed by Tobe Hooper. It was written by Tobe Hooper and Howard Goldberg, based on a story by Hooper, and is a co-production between Henry Bushkin, Sanford Hampton, Jerrold W. Lambert, Jim Rogers and Arthur M. Sarkissian.

<i>Postcards from the Edge</i> (film) 1990 film by Mike Nichols

Postcards from the Edge is a 1990 American comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols. The screenplay by Carrie Fisher is based on her 1987 semi-autobiographical novel of the same title. The film stars Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, and Dennis Quaid.

<i>The New Age</i> (film) 1994 film

The New Age is a 1994 comedy-drama film written and directed by Michael Tolkin, and starring Peter Weller and Judy Davis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harrison Ford filmography</span>

Harrison Ford is an American actor who has had a long and varied career in the entertainment industry across seven different decades. Ford made his film debut in 1966 and spent most of the first ten years of his career in small supporting roles in both films and television before rising to stardom for his portrayal of the iconic and heroic character Han Solo in the epic space opera films Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Return of the Jedi (1983), and then again 32 years later in The Force Awakens (2015) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019). In the early 1980s, his career soared to even bigger heights when he claimed the starring role of another heroic character Indiana Jones in the adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), a role he reprised in The Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989), The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) and The Dial of Destiny (2023). He has also famously portrayed two literary characters brought to the silver screen: the anti-hero detective Rick Deckard in the neo-noir dystopian science fiction film Blade Runner (1982) and its sequel 35 years later, Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and CIA analyst Jack Ryan in the spy thrillers Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994).

<i>Hellions</i> (film) 2015 Canadian film

Hellions is a 2015 Canadian horror film directed by Bruce McDonald, written by Pascal Trottier and starring Chloe Rose. The film was an official selection of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival lineup and also screened at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

<i>Winchester</i> (film) 2018 film by Michael and Peter Spierig

Winchester is a 2018 supernatural horror film directed by Michael and Peter Spierig, and written by the Spierigs and Tom Vaughan. The film stars Helen Mirren as heiress Sarah Winchester, with Jason Clarke and Sarah Snook, and follows Winchester as she is haunted by spirits inside her San Jose mansion in 1906.

References

  1. 1 2 "Regarding Henry". AFI Catalog .
  2. ↑ "Regarding Henry". Amazon.
  3. ↑ Canby, Vincent (July 10, 1991). "Review/Film; The Attitude Adjustment of a Bullet in the Brain". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331.
  4. ↑ Ebert, Roger (July 10, 1991). "Regarding Henry movie review & film summary (1991)". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  5. ↑ Kempley, Rita (July 10, 1991). "'Regarding Henry' (PG-13)". The Washington Post . Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  6. ↑ Travers, Peter (July 10, 1991). "Regarding Henry". Rolling Stone . Archived from the original on August 15, 2022. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  7. ↑ "Regarding Henry". Variety. January 1, 1991. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  8. ↑ "Regarding Henry (1991)". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango . Retrieved February 1, 2024.
  9. ↑ "Regarding Henry Reviews". Metacritic . CBS Interactive . Retrieved January 1, 2020.
  10. ↑ "Home". CinemaScore . Retrieved February 28, 2022.
  11. ↑ "Regarding Henry". Box Office Mojo.
  12. ↑ "UIP's $25M-Plus Club". Variety . September 11, 1995. p. 93.
  13. ↑ "Regarding Henry (1991)". mubi.com . Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  14. ↑ "Thirteenth Annual Youth in Film Awards". youngartistawards.org. Archived from the original on April 3, 2011. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  15. ↑ Ordway, Holly E. (September 10, 2003). "Regarding Henry". DVD Talk. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  16. ↑ Kluger, Bryan (June 30, 2021). "Regarding Henry - Imprint Films Limited Edition". bluray.highdefdigest.com. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.