Regarding Henry

Regarding Henry Information

Regarding Henry is a 1991 American film drama starring Harrison Ford and Annette Bening, directed by Mike Nichols.

The screenplay by J. J. Abrams focuses on a New York City lawyer who struggles to regain his memory and recover his speech and mobility after he survives a shooting.

Plot

Ambitious, callous, narcissistic, and at times unethical, Henry Turner is a highly successful Manhattan attorney whose obsession with his work leaves him little time for his prim socialite wife Sarah and troubled preteen daughter Rachel. He has just won a malpractice suit in which he defended a hospital against a plaintiff who claims, but is unable to prove, that he warned the hospital of a problem.

Running out to buy cigarettes one night, he is shot when he interrupts a convenience store robbery in progress. One bullet hits his right frontal lobe, which controls some behavior and restraint, while the other pierces his chest and hits his left subclavian vein, causing excessive internal bleeding and cardiac arrest. He experiences anoxia, a lack of oxygen to the brain, resulting in brain damage.

Henry survives, but initially he can neither move nor talk, and he suffers retrograde amnesia. He regains movement and speech with the help of a physical therapist named Bradley. Upon returning to his luxurious apartment, the almost childlike Henry is impressed by the surroundings he once barely noticed. As he forges a new relationship with Sarah and Rachel, he slowly realizes he does not like the person he was before the attack.

His firm allows him to return to work out of deference to his previous contributions to the firm's success. As his firm takes away his old assignments and large office and essentially assigns him only busy work, Henry finds it difficult to remain a lawyer. After he resigns the family decides to relocate to a less expensive, suburban residence.

He finds letters from a former colleague disclosing an affair he had with Sarah, becomes angry and upset, and leaves home. He is confronted by Linda, a fellow attorney at his firm, who reveals that they were also having an affair and that he had said he would leave Sarah. Henry, realizing that (as Sarah had said) everything had been wrong before, returns to her and is reconciled. Also, he gives documents from his last case that were suppressed by his firm to the plaintiff whom he now realizes was in the right. He also goes to take Rachel out of the elite school where she is unhappy.

Cast

Harrison Ford as Henry Turner
Annette Bening as Sarah Turner
Bill Nunn as Bradley
Rebecca Miller as Linda
Bruce Altman as Bruce
Elizabeth Wilson as Jessica
Donald Moffat as Charlie Cameron
Mikki Allen as Rachel Turner
John Leguizamo as Liquor Store Gunman
Robin Bartlett as Phyllis
James Rebhorn as Dr. Sultan
J.J. Abrams as Delivery Boy (as Jeffrey Abrams)

Production

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

The soundtrack includes the song "Walking on the Moon," written by Sting and performed by The Police.

Release

Critical reception

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

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." The reviewer also described the way the movie 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.

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

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

Regarding Henry currently holds a 44% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews.

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 #7 at the box office. It eventually earned $43,001,500 in domestic markets.

Home media

The film was released on Region 1 DVD on September 9, 2003. It is in anamorphic widescreen format with audio tracks in English and French and subtitles in English.

Accolades

Annette Bening was named Newcomer of the Year for her work in this as well as Guilty by Suspicion, The Grifters, Valmont, and Postcards from the Edge by the London Film Critics' Circle.

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.