Mr. Harrigan’s Phone: Be Careful What Questions You Ask, Someone May Answer

When you think of Stephen King you automatically jump to outlandish horror with stories like Carrie, Cujo, Christine, Needful Things and It.  But he is also the mind behind some poignant coming of age and self discovery movies. Mr. King gave us Stand By Me, Dolores Claiborne and Shawshank Redemption, which may have elements of horror in them, but are much more character driven.  Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, the new Netflix movie based on a Stephen King Short story, is more in line with the latter category.  Although you can argue it is a ghost story, at it’s heart, this is a coming of age story about a boy who learns a life lesson that shapes who he will become.  So if you were expecting horror and gore, move along, this isn’t the film for you.

Craig (Jaeden Martell) is a young boy living in a very small town.  His mother passed away when he was young and his father has become “hollow”, to quote Craig, but the boy has also withdrawn due to his own grief. Retired businessman and billionaire, Mr. Harrigan (Donald Sutherland) is loosing his eyesight and hires Craig to come to his mansion and read to him three times a week.  Mr. Harrigan is misanthropic and has few friends to keep him company, although he is not mean and in fact is very kind to the child. As the years go by, and as Craig matures, he continues to read to Mr. Harrigan and the two develop an unlikely friendship.  Craig wins a small sum of money from a lottery ticket Mr. Harrigan gave him as a Christmas present, and with it, he buys an Apple smart phone and teaches the old man how to use it.  But when Mr. Harrigan finally passes away, Craig’s life gets turned upside down, when he receives cryptic text messages from the phone that he gave Mr. Harrigan which was buried with him.

I was really surprised by this film and how well done it was.  There isn’t really a “big bad” to be defeated or a monster that needs fighting.  The real story is the way the two leads developed their friendship, and the grief Craig faces both from his mother’s loss and the loss of his long-time friend.  The dialogue is beautifully crafted, and the actors do an amazing job in delivering them.  Jaeden Martell is no stranger to Stephen King’s material, having played the young Bill Denbrough in 2017’s It and its conclusion released in 2019.  He aptly displays a variety of emotions throughout the film, grief, sorrow, joy, determination, and regret.  There is a realistic subtlety to him that not only endears the audience to his character but creates an empathic connection that allows the audience to experience the emotions as well. The amazing Donald Sutherland is so well cast in this part.  Mr. Harrigan is a complicated character, he is a ruthless businessman and you do not want to be on his bad side, but there is a kind and gentle nature to him.  There is a great scene where he asks Craig why he has continued to come read to him for such a long time, and when Craig gives him this amazing answer, you can tell how much it touched his soul.  There were no words spoken but you sense that it was probably the nicest thing anyone had said to the man, and you felt that emanating from Mr. Sutherland. It would be no surprise if Sutherland gets an Oscar nom for this performance, it is that good.

The critical response to the film has been mixed, and it always amazes me how varied humans are.  What speaks and touches one person doesn’t to another.  Some critics feel the film was a bit dull. For example,  Eric Eisenberg of CinemaBlend said, “it’s a dull and lagging feature that tries to be both a coming-of-age drama and a supernatural horror film, and it ends up failing to make an emotional impact with either genre.” And Benamin Lee of The Guardian wrote, “…a competently made yet utterly inconsequential pre-Halloween time-waster.”.  But other critics, like myself, thought the movie well worth it and connected with them on an emotional level.