I just watched The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar on Netflix. It’s a short Wes Anderson film based on a Roald Dahl story, and I really liked it.
This is the kind of movie that reminds me why I enjoy Wes Anderson in the first place. He goes all in on his style here and it just works.
The whole thing is only 37 minutes. It feels more like watching a play than a regular movie. The actors literally narrate the story word for word from Roald Dahl’s book. They even say things like “he said” and “I replied” out loud, like they’re reading it to us
At first, it felt weird and awkward. But then maybe five minutes in, I stopped noticing. The camera starts moving with the dialogue and scenes shift around and it was so pleasing to watch.
Benedict Cumberbatch plays Henry Sugar. Henry Sugar is a rich single man who lives off the money he inherited. He spends most of his time gambling. One day, he finds a doctor’s report about a man named Imdad Khan, who claimed he could see without using his eyes.
The doctor had seen Imdad perform amazing tricks in a circus. Imdad later told him his life story. When he was young, he ran away and joined a traveling circus. There, he met a guru called The Great Yogi, who could meditate and even lift his body off the ground. After some hesitation, the yogi taught Imdad a special meditation technique. This practice gave Imdad the ability to see without his eyes. Sadly, he died soon after, before doctors could study him more.
Henry becomes obsessed with learning this skill. He practices for three years. He trains by staring at a candle flame and imagining the face of the person he loves most. In the end, he learns how to see through the backs of playing cards and read their numbers.
Henry goes to a casino and wins £30,000 playing blackjack. But winning money so easily makes him feel empty. He throws the money off his balcony into the streets of London, which almost causes chaos. A police officer tells him to find a better way to give to charity.
After that, Henry travels around the world. Using disguises, he wins money at casinos and uses it to build hospitals and orphanages. Twenty years later, Henry dies from a pulmonary embolism. Because of his special ability, he knows he is going to die, he can see the blood clot inside his body.
After his death, his accountant asks Roald Dahl to write Henry’s story, but keeps Henry’s real identity a secret.
All of that plot feels compact in this film. The short runtime probably saves it. Some of Anderson’s movies are beautiful but exhausting. This one doesn’t overstay. One idea, start to finish, done.
There’s so much explaining in this film. So much talking. Normally I’d zone out, but it reminds me of this thing from Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! called “Pope in the Pool.” Basically, if you need characters to dump a ton of information, you better make sure something interesting is happening on screen. Wes Anderson gets this.
While the characters narrate, the sets never stop moving. Walls slide away, new backdrops roll in, props get carried across the screen by crew members you can fully see. When Henry levitates, you can see the stool under him. They’re not even trying to hide it. The film just shows you how the trick works while doing the trick, and somehow that makes it better. I don’t know why that works but it does.
If you don’t like Wes Anderson, you’ll probably hate this. The super controlled framing and the precise camera movements match what Henry is trying to learn. The film is as disciplined as Henry needs to be.
Anyway, it is a brilliant short film. It doesn’t waste time. I liked it more than I expected to.