Sometimes the most difficult movies to write about are the ones that work really, really well. Regarding Henry is one of those: a movie that completely captivated me while I was watching it, and that left me with a satisfied, thoughtful feeling after the credits rolled, and with scenes and images from the film recurring in my mind afterwards. It's a film that's just plain well done, from start to finish.

Harrison Ford plays the title role here: we meet him as a hot-shot lawyer who is the star of his firm, but who is emotionally far distant from his wife Sarah (Annette Bening) and twelve-year-old daughter Rachel. Let's face it: Henry is not a particularly nice guy. And then one day he meets with an accident that leaves him unable to walk or speak, suffering from brain damage and memory loss. In the days and months ahead, Henry faces the greatest challenge of his life: to rediscover his life, his family, and himself.

One of the best qualities of Regarding Henry is that it connects with the viewer in an extremely natural way. I'm sometimes a little suspicious of films that are labeled "heartwarming!" as there's always the potential for the "heartwarming" effect to be created by pulling the viewer's emotional strings. Fortunately, Regarding Henry is a film that's marvelously effective with no strings attached. Our response to the events of the story develops in an organic way, from the building up of many small details that we've seen and reacted to. Perhaps one of the telling points in the film's favor is that the musical score is entirely subordinate to the emotional impact of the on-screen events: in not a single instance did I notice the presence of manipulative "mood music" signaling what emotion we were supposed to be feeling at that moment. There's no need: what we feel comes from what's happening.

Regarding Henry is full of small but telling details: from a spilled glass of juice to Rachel's request for a puppy, these are little things that tell us about the characters and that link together the "before" and "after" elements of the film in a subtle but effective way. One of the reason this works so well is that all of the performances are right on target, from Bening's portrayal of a woman desperately trying to deal with personal tragedy behind a cheery facade, to Bill Nunn as the physical therapist who draws Henry out and gives him the strength to pick up the threads of his unraveled life. And in the title role, Ford gives what must be one of the best performances of his career. Pre-accident Henry is completely convincing; so too is post-accident Henry, and Ford manages to evoke just the right balance of emotions as a man trying to navigate through a complicated life that was once his own. Ford is always effective as "the man who's in over his head, trying to deal with things," although that gets overdone in some of his films; here, he strikes exactly the right balance between Henry's confusion and frustration, and his joy in rediscovering his own capabilities and emotional connections.

The film is beautifully paced, drawing you in so smoothly that you become completely engaged with the characters and the world of the story. Not a single scene or section of the film is out of place; the story is constantly developing and building on what has come before. Part of the success of the pacing may come from the way that the film centers on the most important elements of any given scene, without trying to mix in sub-plots or extraneous secondary characters. At 115 minutes, Regarding Henry is an excellent example of how effective a tightly edited and polished film can be: many of the events of the story are more effective because of the subtle, low-key way that they are foreshadowed and developed.

The most interesting question raised by Regarding Henry is "What do you do when you have the chance to start over as a completely new person?" The film itself doesn't answer that question directly, but it doesn't ignore it, either: instead, what Regarding Henry is really about is Henry's progress toward facing that question for himself. It's a film about the learning process, about growth, about self-discovery and re-discovery, and along the way, it's an extremely engaging movie.

The DVD

Regarding Henry is a single-sided, single-layer DVD, and it completely fills the 4 GB of space on its one layer. The bit rate is a completely average mark of around 7.7 mb/s. It's a pity that Paramount didn't opt for a dual-layer disc, with more space for the transfer as well as some special features, which clearly couldn't have been fit on the DVD as it is.

Video

Regarding Henry is presented in a widescreen anamorphic transfer, at its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. It's a good example of a flawed but still reasonably solid transfer. The main fault is the presence of a substantial amount of grain in the image, with some edge enhancement also present. Fortunately, the transfer has several very good points to offset the graininess: for one thing, contrast is handled extremely well (which surprised me since I often see grain and contrast problems going hand-in-hand), with both well-lit and dark scenes having appropriate levels of detail and shading. Colors are another strong point in the film, always looking bright, vivid, and natural. All in all, Regarding Henry ends up with a better-than-average mark for video quality; I'd certainly like to have seen a sharper transfer, but it's reasonable as it is.

Audio

Two soundtrack options are provided: a Dolby 5.1 and a Dolby 2.0. For this dialogue-based film, the 5.1 track pulls its weight not by fancy surround effects, but by providing a consistently natural-sounding platform for the actors' voices. Dialogue is always clear and crisp, with a nice balance among speech, music, and environmental effects.

Extras

There are no special features on this DVD. I do want to praise the menus, however: they are elegantly simple and absolutely clear and easy to use, which is really refreshing after some of the "fancy" menus I've had to navigate through at times.

Final thoughts

Regarding Henry is an all-around great movie: beautifully told, well acted, perfectly paced, and very memorable. If it had been given a knockout transfer and some decent special features, we'd be talking about a Collectors Series disc here. As it is, with a reasonably good though not great video transfer and no extras, Regarding Henry is hands down an easy choice for "highly recommended."