Instant Favorite.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Henry is a partner in a law firm. He is arrogant, ruthless, and demanding, as unpleasant at work as he is at home. Then he gets shot in the head during a holdup, and after a little therapy, becomes a really sweet, loving family man who realizes that when he was a lawyer he did things that were wrong.This is probably not very realistic. My guess would be that if brain damage caused a personality change, it would more likely be for the worse. But stranger things have happened, so I suppose the combination of a bullet in the head and lack of oxygen could destroy the part of the brain that makes a man a jerk. The question is, regardless of how likely or unlikely such an event may be, why pick this particular scenario to base a movie on?The head and the heart are the two major components of a man's personality, and the question that has occurred to people over the years is, which of the two is more important? Of course, it is not as though intelligence and a pleasant disposition are mutually exclusive, and that if you have one, you cannot have the other. There are doubtless many geniuses that are kind and loving, just as there are simpletons that are mean and cruel. But if you did have to choose, which of the two would you want more of?Movies often say that the heart is more important than the head. In "A Chump at Oxford" (1940), Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy find themselves at Oxford, where a bump on the head restores the intellect and character of the man Stan used to be, Lord Paddington, brilliant scholar and athlete. He is also arrogant and condescending, treating Ollie with contempt. Another bump on the head, however, turns Stan back into the good-natured simpleton that we are familiar with, much to Ollie's delight. A couple of other movies that champion the heart over the head are "Harvey" (1950) and "Forest Gump" (1994).On the other hand, if a man is a genius, a certain amount of unlikable personality traits will be tolerated. Sherlock Holmes, for instance, is often portrayed as austere and aloof. In "Flight of the Phoenix" (1965), Dorfmann (Hardy Kruger) does not suffer fools gladly, but we suffer him gladly because he is so brilliant. And the eponymous character in the television show "House" (2004-2012) is often shown to be rude and obnoxious, but all is forgiven because we thrill at watching a superior intellect at work. Furthermore, we vicariously enjoy the arrogance of these characters, since we ourselves often chafe at having to be so darn humble and polite.Needless to say, "Regarding Henry" comes down on the side of the heart. But as I said, I don't think it is very realistic. A more likely outcome would be that a man like Henry would still be the same obnoxious person he was before, only less able to express himself.This is not helped by the fact that the matter of their finances is never really addressed. Henry's daughter Rachel asks her mother Sarah if they are going to be poor, for which Sarah has no good answer. The advice she gets from a friend is not to tell anyone about the dire nature of their finances, but to go out with some friends and spend lots of money, as if keeping up appearances is the solution to Sarah's problems. Sarah does have a job, they do find a less expensive place to live, and they eventually pull Rachel out of the private school, although that is more for emotional reasons than financial ones. In short, we do not have enough specifics to draw any definite conclusions about their finances, but I would have expected more drastic cutbacks in expenditures than that. So, when Henry resigns from his law firm, the sense of financial doom still seems to be hanging over them.The point is that our credulity is already strained by the premise that an obnoxious man would be transformed by brain damage into a wonderful person. The additional unreality of their finances pushes our ability to suspend disbelief just a bit too far.

Harrison Ford is such a popular, warm, and likable actor, he can't help but elevate any film in which he appears. Of course, a few weren't worth elevating, like Sabrina, Six Days, Seven Nights, What Lies Beneath) but every prolific actor has a few clinkers. And no matter what, he's always good.Here he plays Henry, a real legal shark, the stereotypical type, who is shot when he goes into a store to buy cigarettes. He is shot in his frontal lobe, which means he has lost his memory, which includes how to talk, walk, tie his shoes, and remember his wife Sarah (Annette Bening) and daughter (Mikki Allen). It's a long, slow road, but he connects with his therapist, Bradley (Bill Nunn), so much so that when it's time to go home, Henry doesn't want to leave.We see Henry after his rehab but before he is completely well. In cases like this, while a great deal of his memory may never return, he probably will become a little sharper as time goes on. Here, he speaks slowly without much affect and though he can take in what he reads, it's obvious he won't return to the law. He's changed and realizes that he doesn't like the old self reflected to him in the law firm and in the shallow people who were supposedly his friends. The people around him - the housekeeper, his wife, and even his daughter - like this Henry a lot better. But he learns the past was more complicated than the present.Let's face it, without Ford, this could have been a movie of the week. With Ford, it's a feel-good story, if predictable. He's wonderful, as is Annette Bening who struggles to get used to the new Henry. They are surrounded by some strong TV and film people.I admit I have a soft spot in my heart for Ford after transcribing an interview with him while he was making an Indiana Jones film. He and the interviewer were in a coffee shop in some out of the way place, and a man approached them and talked to him. He walked away, and them he came back and asked if Ford signs autographs. "Let me ask you something," Ford says, "when you go to the movies, do you pay for a ticket?" "Yes," the man says. "Then I sign autographs," Ford answers. He's a class act - all the way.

Along with Lorenzo's Oil, My Life and First Sight, Regarding Henry is one of my favorite movies with a medical theme. In all of these films, the ill person triumphs in one way or another, and in Regarding Henry, a sense of ethics and restructuring of Henry's values takes place after his is critically wounded by a gun. Personality changes, whether complete or partial, often happen after severe trauma, and sometimes, it is for-the-better.Harrison Ford is not my favorite actor, but he does a respectable job in Regarding Henry, playing the part of a man in rehabilitation. Stanley Swerdlow does a great job as a physical therapist.My only concern about the movie is that I wish Henry's wife, Sarah (played by Annette Bening) had somehow or in her own ways paralleled Henry's evolutionary change-of-heart during the recuperation process.This would have explained just why a person who married a high-power corporate attorney (and who had steeled her heart enough to send her only child away to a snooty boarding school against her wishes) was perfectly fine with staying married to a brain-damaged, partially disabled man. I just found that that aspect of the movie deserved some treatment and fleshing-out.

Most of you have seen the film by now considering its age, so you know the conclusion from the complicated-and-warmly-evolving Aristotelian premises. But who'd expect a small, young waggely hound playing his dutiful roll (also via the protagonist's dog-bereft-and-emotionally-distant daughter, his wife Annette Bening, and a magic-man of remedial therapy played brilliantly by Bill Nunn), in this concentrated review of the shot-brain-recovery of a worldly-corrupted attorney, to help slowly regain his sense of priorities in life? And, to ultimately make apologies to his former and bereft clients? On an nsupervised 'outing', while he's still in recovery at home, former high-class lawyer, Henry Turner (Harrison Ford), finds himself at a New York pet-shop with a doggie-in-the-window ('how much' doesn't matter). Something 'cognitive' (a remote memory) suddenly occurs - and he brings the young hound home with assistance from searching friends and the hotel doorman at the 'Ritz'-Carlton' - where he lives but cannot remember the way home as a virtual 12 year-old. Healing now really begins. Although 'Buddy's' screen-time is limited by Mike Nichols the director, it's perfectly installed in several memorable moments - especially in the end where Buddy joins the family walking down the steps of Henry's rehab center after his release in a jumping, yelping 'I wanna be part of the family too!' kind-of-scene. I don't know about you, but I was fortunate enough to be part of a doggie's life every single day for 17 years, 9 months - right at the front door and every place else in my home and around town. I also needed healing - and my doggie? Well, she was the one. Right up to 11-22-11.