Between releasing Jurassic World last year and preparing to begin production on Star Wars: Episode IX in the near future, director Colin Trevorrow found time to work on an original, non-blockbuster project titled The Book of Henry. Focus Features has now released both the first trailer (see the video above) and a new poster for Trevorrow's upcoming film, ahead of its release in theaters this June.
The Book of Henry was written by novelist/screenwriter Gregg Hurwitz (V) and revolves around one Susan Carpenter (Naomi Watts) - a single mother who makes her living as a waitress - as well as her sons Peter and Henry, played by Jacob Tremblay (Room) and Jaeden Lieberher (Midnight Special), respectively. The young Carpenter brothers get up to an adventure when they discover that Henry's classmate and next door neighbor, Christina, has a dangerous secret - one that inspires Henry to set a daring rescue plan in motion that, eventually, even Susan finds herself caught up in.
As the trailer for The Book of Henry illustrates, the kind-though-troubled Christina is played by the young dancer/actress Maddie Ziegler; most famous of late for her music video collaborations with Sia. Further rounding out the movie's cast in key supporting roles are comedian Sarah Silverman as the Carpenter's "feisty family friend" Sheila and Breaking Bad's Dean Norris as the local police commissioner and Christina's step-dad, Glenn Sickleman. You can check out The Book of Henry poster, below.
Prior to helming Jurassic World, Trevorrow made his name as a director on the critically-acclaimed 2012 indie film Safety Not Guaranteed. Although Book of Henry has a strikingly different tone and genre (that of a dramatic thriller, based on the trailer) than the more comedy-oriented Safety Not Guaranteed, both movies deal with heavier subject matter and feature idiosyncratic, yet at the same time grounded protagonists. Whereas Safety focuses on the lives of adult characters, Book of Henry splits its focus between the grownups and kids in the story; making the latter come off as being something of a throwback to the famous Amblin movies of the 1980s.
Book of Henry may have cost a fraction of the budget for Trevorrow's Jurassic Park sequel/reboot (the former has a $10 million price tag), but it seems visually solid and polished in its own right. The movie reunites Trevorrow with not only his Jurassic World cinematographer John Schwartzman, but also that tentpole's Oscar-winning composer, Michael Giacchino - something that benefits the final result here, judging by the trailer. For these reasons, Book of Henry might prove to not only be a nice palate cleanser for Trevorrow the director (before he heads off to a galaxy far, far away), but also a welcome change of pace for audiences during this year's summer movie season.
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Source: Focus Features
