Regarding Henry

Regarding Henry is Hollywood at its worst. The film is about a successful lawyer, Henry Turner, who by unlucky chance is shot by a desperate shop robber. Henry is hit in the head but survives, albeit with severe damage. He has lost his memory, his ability to speak, to walk – in short, he starts from scratch. At a rehabilitation home Henry makes such great progress that after a while he can return home to his wife Sarah and teenage daughter Rachel, whom he cannot remember.

It gradually dawns on Henry that he does not like the person he was before the accident at all. Henry was an ice-cold careerist who was having an affair with a colleague and whose relationship with his wife and daughter was utterly superficial. Henry breaks with his old life when he turns his back on his job and chooses his wife and daughter.

So the film arrives at the conclusion that the accident was actually one of the best things that ever happened in Henry's life. His miraculous recovery and change of personality are hardly anywhere near realistic. The film's black-and-white characters probably belong only in Hollywoodland, too. Yet I swallowed the film whole, even though I was sceptical in advance about what I regarded as a calculated tearjerker. Regarding Henry is, after all, terribly well told, entertaining and with likeable performances from the ever-reliable Harrison Ford and Annette Bening.