The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)
There’s Nothing Quite Like It.
I’ve watched two movies today with the free time i had whilst I attempt to use up expiring vacation days from my job - and I bring you a review from a movie that I actually watched a little while ago. Yep, a man of true perplexing decisions here. When it comes down to it though - I can do what I want when I’m the one in charge, and of all three movies this was by far the most interesting one. Yes, one’s a classic and one had Mel Gibson in it, but this one? I haven’t seen a movie quite like this, so why don’t you all join me for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.
This wonderful story is in fact a story - one written by Ronald Dahl if our title doesn’t lead us astray. The main thing is a bit of a layered endeavor - We have the writer telling us about the story he’s written about a man who read a story of notes about a miraculous event that inspired him to his own sort of unnamed greatness. It all sounds a bit confusing, but it’s presented incredibly clear in the movie itself - A man reads a journal of notes from a doctor whose recounting the incredible tale of a man who can see without seeing, as learned from his time with a Yogi. It inspires the man, whose a bit of a gambler, to try and learn this power for himself, but it turns out to have some unexpected effects on his life outlook.
The story in itself is somewhat interesting, but what really sells it is the whimsy in my opinion. It’s short - clocking in under an hour - but the entire presentation feels like someone putting together a live stage play on the fly at a movie set while filming. Scenes slide apart and together to change, paintings and all sorts of little tricks are used for more elaborate backdrops, and even the way the actors do their thing all plays into this novel sort of concept. Obviously it worked for me - otherwise I probably wouldn’t have found the desire to write about it, particularly when it’s a third the normal movie length! It’s pretty well put together - the story specifically - and with that condensed time frame it’s always marching forward, even for moments of “down time” where it’s supposed to just be a time transition. It’s as though someone wanted to literally take a story and turn it into a film, down to including characters narrating their parts and others, only to have whichever character then deliver the line.
To be an actor for this must have felt both so strange and also quite satisfying. It really feels quite a bit different than most things I’ve watched. Sure, we have stuff in the Deadpool movies with breaking the 4th wall all the time, and occasionally characters in movies would really ham it up towards the camera, but here an actor will be hustling down a hallway only to spike the camera directly and voice their narration thoughts. Side characters will take a step back to return into a scene after the main narration is done, “resetting” themselves into the movie presentation to deliver their lines before stepping back to the front stage to continue taking part in narration. It was all just so very new when I was watching it. The actors do a pretty good job with it all as well, despite I’m sure it being quite different from the norm!
A scene change
Given that it’s essentially a movie that’s a visual story here, folks looking for characters should be relatively happy as well. Our main character - or at least the focal point of our story - has a good arc about him, and the actors across the board do a good job with this somewhat strange style of back and forth between actor voicing and character voicing things. That said, although the main does have a bit of development to him, our middle man doctor more serves his role - an incredibly impressed and curious scientific type - than really being anything super elaborate. Likewise, our mystical can-see-without-seeing fellow has a lot of story and a bit of pizazz about him, but doesn’t quite benefit from the same level of growth as our main. In all honesty though - the thing is under an hour long, the amount of building it does of the various elements is still pretty impressive.
The props and scenery also all play into this same idea of interesting. Instead of finding a house, having a man leave the house and walk down a drive way to the fence by the road like most movies, it instead puts a fake house front for him to stand in front of, and when that wheels out of the way we see a picture of the house smaller as a backdrop while the fence is pushed in from the side. To give the impression of something like the Yogi levitating off the ground, he simply spins the box he is sitting on so that it shows a paint job that matches the ground and background to make it feel invisible. It’s all really neat in my opinion, and I liked how much it made it feel like I was just watching some sort of really elaborate stage show. Often times I’ll point out how hard it is for me to remember things, especially when it comes to movies repeating elements after having enjoyed so many of the darn things - so when I saw this it jumped out with a childish sort of glee. I don’t really remember seeing stuff used like this a lot, and it in turn feels like the sort of thing that wouldn’t get green-lit everyday by just any person unless it was a bunch of friends in an indie endeavor.
Audio is balanced well, but even then it comes off feeling like a play. Most of the audio is going to be dialogue and sound effects as far as things that stand out, and you hear it all well. Line deliveries are well done, albeit somewhat different than what you would normally expect in a movie given the monologue nature of a lot of the focal characters providing their own narration - as though someone in an audio book was reading their characters parts both spoken and written to help distinguish it from the others. It’s also all quite down to earth with the sound design - despite the whimsy presentation of the set changes and the novel play-like way actors do things, you won’t find yourself being hit with wacky cartoon sound effects as much the sounds of things sliding or moving to their spot.
Narration for effect.
Really, with it’s short length the only reason I can really see that someone shouldn’t at least try checking it out is simply because they lack access to Netflix. Even if it ends up not being your sort of movie, it’s a little over a half hour long - I’ve had dinners that took longer than that! It’s got some good acting, a novel presentation, and a solid story. I should note that I have not read the book - in case anybody would expect otherwise - so I can’t attest to any adaptation levels of things. With that in mind though, what a lovely, interesting, and fun little ride of a short movie this was.