History YMMV / TheBookOfHenry

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Susan working at the diner is meant to be seen as irresponsible because thanks to Henry's stock market work the family has a good source of outside income and if she left the job she could spend more time being a mom. However she clearly already spends a lot of time with her children and given the fact the Stock Market can crash it makes it look more like Susan having a job is the responsible thing to do in case something goes wrong with the market. It's also quite possible she just doesn't wanna feel like she's making money doing nothing.

** Principal Janice (aka [[WebVideo/FoldingIdeas Goddammit Janice]]) initially tells Henry her hands are tied as far as helping Christina is concerned. Then during the film's climax [[spoiler: a sad look from Christina during her dance recital is all it takes for her to finally call the police on her stepdad. Meaning she very well could've intervened before, but just... didn't.]]

* SpiritualSuccessor: For better or for worse, the film has numerous rather striking similarities to Creator/RobReiner's ''Film/{{North}}''--another quirky and offbeat film about a precocious child that was pretty clearly ''intended'' as a heartwarming modern-day fairy tale, but became infamous for its bizarre story, [[MoodWhiplash tonal dissonance]], and weirdly mean-spirited undertones. Much like that film, it's developed something of a reputation as a SoBadItsGood anti-classic, with even some of its fiercest detractors admitting to finding it ''[[BileFascination fascinating]]''.

** Principal Janice (aka [[FoldingIdeas Goddammit Janice]]) initially tells Henry her hands are tied as far as helping Christina is concerned. Then during the film's climax [[spoiler: a sad look from Christina during her dance recital is all it takes for her to finally call the police on her stepdad. Meaning she very well could've intervened before, but just... didn't.]]

* AssPull: [[spoiler: Some people felt Susan choosing not to shoot Glenn was this, because up until that point the movie had been about Susan learning to put her trust in Henry, so having a moment where she learns she has to disregard Henry feels out of left field.]]
* AudienceAlienatingPremise: A child who dies of a tumour and wanted to help an abused neighbor... by planning to murder her father, an idea his mother decides to follow! No wonder audiences wouldn't buy something so weird and filled with contentious points.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Henry is meant to be seen as a likable child prodigy whose WiseBeyondHisYears who looks after his family and wants to save a girl from her abusive father. A lot of viewers and critics instead saw Henry as an insufferable, condescending control freak who belittles everyone and has a childish view of the world despite acting like he's grown up with SmugSnake tendencies. And even though he had good intentions for wanting to save Christina from her abusive father, the fact that his solution to the problem is murder rather than getting definitive proof can strain viewers' empathy.

* AcceptableHobbyTargets: Susan gets a lot of flack for being an adult who plays video games.

* DesignatedHero: Arguably Henry. Despite the film’s attempt at framing Henry as a kid who’s mature and wise beyond his years, how he acts paints a different character. From his first scene alone, Henry insults another student in an improvised essay reading and condescendingly tells his teacher that he wants to stay in a class with kids his age for his psycho-social development – [[BlatantLies even though he is never seen interacting with any other classmate during lunch or recess in the movie.]][[note]]He spends all of his time playing checkers with the lunch lady -- and he curb-stomps the lunch lady in a single move the very second he needs to leave in a hurry, showing that he only dragged out the game for the sake of... wasting their time, probably?[[/note]] And that’s not getting into how Henry polices his own mother with how she spends her free time, takes care of the family and pretty much how she lives. He gets even worse after he dies. Yes, the abusive stepfather should be stopped; but one should ''not'' resort to murder as their first idea, ''much less coach one's mother to commit the act''.

* IdiotPlot: The entire narrative hinges on Henry, supposedly a ChildProdigy WiseBeyondTheirYears, observing a man regularly abusing his daughter from his window and then deciding that the best course of action would not be to wait out with a camera, take some pictures, and report the man to the police, but instead to illegally obtain a rifle and then shoot him at long range and dump the body in a river.

** Glenn is already distrusted by the Carpenters even before he turns out to be an abuser, despite that all we see of him before then is him politely asking Susan to rake the leaves out of the driveway. Since his abuse is never directly seen, some reviewers expected a twist where he turned out to not be up to any wrongdoing.

* {{Squick}}: After learning he's going to die Susan's adult friend Shiela kisses Henry on the lips.

* Hypocrite: In his initial speech Henry talks about one's legacy not being defined by the number of zeroes in their checking account, yet he constantly obsesses over the family's finances and investments despite it being clear that they are already financially secure with a nice house in a good neighbourhood and have money to spare on luxuries like a new car. Even if he were worried about his mother's financial acumen he has more than enough to just hire an accountant to look after these things for her once he's gone.

* Squick: After learning he's going to die Susan's adult friend Shiela kisses Henry on the lips.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Susan working at the diner is meant to be seen as irresponsible because thanks to Henry's stock market work the family has a good source of outside income and if she left the job she could spend more time being a mom. However, given the fact the Stock Market can crash it makes it look more like Susan having a job is the responsible thing to do in case something goes wrong with the market. It's also quite possible she just doesn't wanna feel like she's making money doing nothing.

* CriticalResearchFailure:
** Henry has Susan practice using a sniper rifle to murder Glenn with plywood targets, stating "plywood is only slightly thicker than the human skull." This makes no sense, as plywood can be bought in many different thickness types. It also wouldn't matter how thick the target is, Susan is practicing her aim, her level of skill will have no impact on whether the bullet penetrates Glenn's skull or not.
** Henry has Susan withdraw $1500 in incremental amounts from multiple [=ATMs=], supposedly to avert suspicion. In actuality, pulling from multiple [=ATMs=] in such a short amount of time would cause greater suspicion from the bank than would pulling $1500 out of a single account that's already stated to have at least 600K in it.
** Janice the school principal is stated to having ignored Christina's bruising as a sign of abuse and is too fearful of filing a possibly false report against the police commissioner. In reality, there are few repercussions for an abuse report proven wrong, so many teachers are encouraged to ask about or report bruises on students, even if it may have come from sports instead.
** Boy genius or not, it is illegal for Henry to trade in stocks and bonds.[[note]]In the United States, you can't trade stocks until you are 18 - 21 in some places; it ''would'' be legal for Susan to set up an account in Henry's name, and it ''would'' be legal for Susan to be the one doing the trading with Henry instructing her; however, Henry is doing the trading directly here, which is not legal.[[/note]]

* TookTheBadFilmSeriously: Colin Trevorrow clearly wanted to make a beloved classic both kids and adults could enjoy for generations to come and, credit where it's due, everyone involved is doing their absolute best to make it work but the completely sincere delivery only makes film's ludicrous story, jarring tonal clashes and Henry's insufferable demeanor much more overt.

** The film repeatedly makes mention of an unseen black market purchaser named Dominic, who's implied to be some kind of local crime lord. This detail never matters beyond giving Henry and Susan an excuse for purchasing a gun without any registration, with no mention of police investigating Dominic or what his cronies may be up to. Several viewers, including Olson, suggested he could've led up to an ironic ending where Susan is arrested for allegedly being connected to Dominic.