'Henry Poole' Should Be Left Alone, Waiting

Can't a man drink himself to death in lonely isolation anymore? Apparently not, if you're Henry Poole, and you move into a neighborhood filled with mystical busybodies and trespassing do-gooders.

That's the almost promising start to "Henry Poole Is Here," a not-quite-funny comedy that devolves into a tedious discussion of miracles and redemption. Starring Luke Wilson as the unshaven, raggedy-looking title character, the film might have cleaved to its opening gambit and followed the course of an irascible drunk coaxed on the wagon by some wacky neighbors. But alas, the film tries to do more, and does it badly.

Not long after Henry walks in the door of a dispiriting and empty suburban tract home, he tells his perky real estate agent he'll take it. No need to bargain. And no, don't bother having the owner slap on new paint. I won't be here very long.

With that telling line, we know something is very wrong with Henry. We're more certain of the fact when we see his shopping cart and refrigerator: champagne, hard liquor, Krispy Kremes by the dozen and enough frozen pizza to put the local delivery business in a tailspin.

Only minutes after Henry stocks base camp for his solo assault on Mount Beverage, we're confirmed in the obvious: He is in the last throes of a fatal disease. Unfortunately, no one in Hollywood dies fast from these killer maladies (see "The Bucket List"), and Henry manages to hold on long enough, and in hale health (never mind a hangover or two), to become inextricably intertwined with his neighbors.

First among them, Esperanza (Spanish for "hope"), who wins second place in the Most Allegorical Name in the Movie contest, just behind Patience, the shop clerk with Coke-bottle glasses who gets off a few of the film's genuinely funny lines. Esperanza is convinced that an apparition of Jesus has appeared on the stucco of Henry's house, and she soon gets the Catholic church involved (George Lopez plays a priest, badly) and invites her neighbors to invade Henry's space for some backyard devotionals.

Henry is not pleased. He is a skeptic about miracles, apparitions and other prodigies, and in that, he is backed by several centuries of Enlightenment philosophy. But one by one the wacky neighbors and other intruders are convinced, including Patience, who quotes some not-particularly germane Noam Chomsky at poor doubting Henry.

The name Noam Chomsky in a popular film is irrefutable archaeological evidence that there was, once upon a time, a genuine intent to make a movie that at least makes a pretense at pretension. You can't watch "Henry Poole Is Here" without suspecting that during production some minority of the creative team held out for "quirky, funny, smart" while the majority steamrolled forward with "irascible drunk with wacky neighbors." Neither side won, and nobody (including director Mark Pellington) stepped in to erase signs of the stalemate, which continues through the film and results in some very odd shifts of tone.

When Henry finally confronts Esperanza about her dubious faith in the image, we get a spiritual smackdown straight from the pages of the Scottish philosopher David Hume's definitive 1748 text on the subject, "An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding." Hume argued that it would be more miraculous than any run-of-the-mill miracle if everyone who believed in God's face suddenly appearing on a stucco wall was telling the truth, clearsighted, well informed and disinterested. Henry, rather cruelly, suggests some very plausible reasons why Esperanza wants to believe this vision is more than just a spot of discolored paint.

No matter. Esperanza, played by Adriana Barraza in the film's only convincing performance, needs her miracle and she will have it. This is the point where the film goes from bad to nasty. Henry begs his neighbors to leave him alone, to let him forgo submission to the vision. They (and screenwriter Albert Torres, who makes Henry's life progressively more tragic) will break him down, bring him round, extort belief from him.

Almost. The film takes a few surprise turns on this cruel journey. But a few smart turns in a forest of stupid doesn't make a film smart. In the end, the film feels like a halfhearted nod to the theocracy that looms just under the surface of American life. We are a very religious nation. Nearly 80 percent think miracles occur, this paper reported in June. "Henry Poole Is Here" is a cinematic attempt to bring the other 20 percent to heel. And that's no laughing matter.

Henry Poole Is Here (100 minutes, at area theaters) is rated PG for adult themes and some strong language.