Mark Reviews Movies: MR. HARRIGAN'S PHONE

Mr. Harrigan's Phone, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 4, 2022

Writer/director John Lee Hancock's Mr. Harrigan's Phone is an adaptation/extension of a short story, and it shows. The story does come from Stephen King, so there's at least some cleverness, some sense of humanity, and a literally killer hook to be found within this promising but disappointingly anticlimactic tale.

The gimmick revolves around technology and a modern twist on that old monkey's paw. That Hancock takes his time to actually get to the core of the plot is its own combination of gift and curse.

On the positive side, we get to spend time with Craig, played by Jaeden Martell as a teenager for the formative parts of the story and by Colin O'Brien as a kid who kind of lucks out and unwittingly starts a chain of events that will lead to a lot of trouble down the line. He's a generically good kid from a small village in Maine—the son of a caring dad (played by Joe Tippett) and a deceased mother. The kid's even a reader at his local church.

That's where, in 2003, he catches the attention of Mr. Harrigan (Donald Sutherland), the richest man in the state. The elderly billionaire, who earned his fortune in vague business dealings and with a cutthroat attitude, is having troubles with his eyesight, but he likes reading. The old man hires Craig to come to his remote mansion three times a week, paying the kid $5 an hour, to recite the classics to him. That's good money for a kid, especially one as genuinely considerate and lonely as Craig, who would read to Harrigan for free if he asked.

There's such a relaxed pace to and feeling of getting to know these two characters, as Craig reads and Harrigan asks his young employee questions about his understanding of the assorted books, that it's almost as if the story isn't heading toward some gimmick. The boy dives into works from the likes of Charles Dickens—for a quick lesson from Harrigan about the natures of both work and money—and Upton Sinclair—for the magnate to recall why he hates the "socialist"—and Joseph Conrad.

By the time they reach the existential horror of that particular book, Craig is now about to start high school. He has come to admire the old man and even like him, and for us, we get to see how these conversations evolve over time, with the boy's coming-of-age, and in how these two kindred spirts share ideas and are connected by an unspoken depth of loneliness. There are some distinctions, too, as Harrigan hints at his ruthless business tactics—a line about money being "cruel" feels odd and then sinister when he adds, "when used properly"—and Craig challenges him just a bit to show his curiosity about such bigger ideas.

Such things don't necessarily need a plot, a conflict, or some contrived device to maintain interest, and at least the device that does start something of a plot and a central conflict in motion isn't contrived one. It isn't at first, that is.

It's a cellphone, obviously, and a specific brand of at-the-time newfangled smartphone that's the envy of everyone in school. Craig gets one from his dad for Christmas, and with an unexpected lottery win from a scratch-off ticket that Harrigan gifts as a quarterly bonus, he buys one for his boss, now his friend of sorts.

A plot does arrive, unfortunately. That's the negative side of spending so much time with these characters and these conversations when Hancock clearly has some other intention in mind. The story involves those cellphones, connected by some otherworldly bond or something that exists beyond the mortal plane or some kind of unexplained nonsense.

The inexplicable mystery of it is fine, as Craig's calls to an unanswered phone are answered in other and far more unexpected ways, and so, too, is the way that, on a certain level, the supernatural hook here becomes an indirect continuation of those conversations—a "ghost in the machine," as one character puts it. Harrigan presents something of an answer to Craig's problems, and Craig has to decide whether to take up the offer, which might feel right in the moment, or challenge the old man's assertion that bullies and their ilk need to be "dispatched" quickly and without regret.

Vagueness is important, if only because, after spending so much time in thoughtful conversation and considered character development, the plot's central conceit really does come out of nowhere. This is a morality tale at its core, wrapped up in a supernatural mystery that's initially intriguing.

Unfortunately, Hancock doesn't seem to know where to take this story. It rushes through the second half, bypassing questions about how all of this is happening, while evading why any of it really matters to Craig with thematically ambiguous narration. Mr. Harrigan's Phone gets us involved in one story, only to arrive at a completely different one with higher stakes but a decidedly lesser impact.

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