JESUS HENRY CHRIST

JESUS HENRY CHRIST is a quirky comedy about a test-tube baby who becomes a precocious young genius looking to find his biological father. Philosophically, it’s a Romantic story with very strong politically correct elements, including an endorsement of homosexuality. Also, at one point, the young boy writes an atheist manifesto against belief in God at his Catholic parochial school.

Ten-year-old Henry narrates the story. Holding a genius IQ, Henry begins by telling how his grandmother was accidentally burned to death during his mother, Patricia’s, own 10th birthday in 1973. A deadly combination of his grandfather’s lighter and some alcohol used to try putting out the flames ignites the mother into a fireball, thankfully off screen.

Shortly thereafter, Patricia’s twin brothers die in an accidental gun shooting that also causes their police cruiser to crash. The gun accidentally shoots the brother driving the cruiser in the head. This causes the cruiser to crash into a building, killing the other brother. Then, another brother leaves for Canada to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. All this leaves Patricia to take care of her aging father. Especially when her last remaining brother gets sick and dies of AIDS just after Henry is born.

Ten years later, Henry meets a divorced local college professor, Slavkin O’Hara, in a local bookstore. Slavkin has just written a book about how he raised his teenage daughter, Audrey, to be free of all “gender bias.” Audrey is upset by the book, so Slavkin enlists Henry’s help in burning them in his empty pool.

Eventually, Henry and his mother find out that Slavkin might be the sperm donor for Henry. That would make Audrey Henry’s half-sister. As they wait for the results of a DNA test, Henry and his mother discover that Slavkin was writing a book about Henry, the local town’s child prodigy. This causes friction between Henry, Patricia and Slavkin.

Meanwhile, Audrey wonders what the “H” means when people say “Jesus H. Christ.” At the end, she decides the H must stand for Henry. Hence the movie’s title.

JESUS HENRY CHRIST has some interesting quirky moments. And, the actors give earnest performances. However, the plot doesn’t seem well structured and the tone is uneven.

Even worse, JESUS HENRY CHRIST is just the kind of quirky comedy that Anti-Christian bigots sympathizing with the feminist and radical homosexual agendas like to make. Though the movie isn’t in-your-face obscene or constantly propagandistic like some of these movies, it is politically correct. For example, the last scene shows Henry’s mother wildly cheering a lesbian character’s public “coming out” announcement during a rally. Also, of course, there’s Henry public manifesto attacking all belief in God. This gets Henry expelled from the Catholic parochial school his mother has him attending. The rest of the movie, however, doesn’t promote Henry’s atheism, so the worldview seems more Romantic than humanist. In fact, a primary message in the movie seems to be to follow your personal wishes and dreams, wherever they may lead. Also, the ending shows that Henry finally has a scrapbook of all his dead and living family relatives, including Savkin and Audrey. Thus, he ends up with a non-traditional family who follow a different drummer, and that’s viewed as a good thing.

This movie also contains some foul language and brief disturbing violence. The deaths of Henry’s grandmother and his twin uncles are extremely bizarre accidents. They seem designed to generate laughter rather than feelings of sadness. This seems to make light of the tragic nature of these deaths. There’s also another quirky death involving the college professor’s cancer doctor, who had an illicit affair with the college professor’s wife and eventually married her after a divorce. Of course, in contrast to these violent deaths, the one brother’s death from AIDS is viewed as seriously tragic. How more politically correct can you get than that?

Needles to say, the movie’s worldview content, political correctness, and comical, quirky tone regarding test-tube babies and violent deaths are abhorrent. Media-wise viewers with high moral or biblical values will want to avoid JESUS HENRY CHRIST. God’s view of family, as depicted by such Bible passages as Matthew 19:1-15, Proverbs 31, Ephesians 5:22-33, and Ephesians 6:1-4, is a much healthier view than this movie’s.