Luke Wilson is a busy man. He’s currently in theaters with the horror/thriller Vacancy, and he’s just signed on to join Lakeshore Entertainment’s new dramedy Henry Poole Is Here. The plot follows a middle aged man (Wilson) who is told by his doctors that he has only six weeks to live. He, naturally, does what any red-hot American man would do. The man blows all of his money on booze, Dominos, and Hostess products. It almost sounds like an Ernest Hemingway biopic but with fewer hot granddaughters.
According to Variety, the project will be shopped at Cannes and Spanish national Isabel Coixet will direct. I’m actually very apprehensive about this project because of the “dramedy” moniker. There’s some really good movies that are part comedy and part drama (American Beauty, Garden State), but in general, the broadly encompassing term isn’t usually a good sign. Commonly, it describes a want-to-be comedy that turns into a preachy mess the last thirty minutes.
While some of the plot details are different, this really invokes memories of the brilliant Nicholas Cage film Leaving Las Vegas. Sadly, there’s no way this can possibly compare; so hopefully, Isabel Coixet and friends go in a completely alternate direction. Either way, at least we’ll probably get a few cameos and an hour and a half of Luke Wilson’s smiling face.
