Henry, Henry

The film opens with a haunting image: a man slumped in a utility shed, an iron rake driven into his skull.

In 2001, Henry lives in a cheap apartment divided down the middle — one side obsessively tidy, the other messy. Speaking directly to the camera, Henry One insists he is the original occupant of the body. Henry Two, he explains, is the intruder. They compete for “the microphone of my mouth.”

Henry Two aggravates their tense coexistence when he invites Troy, a young woman he met in the laundry room. In her presence, Henry Two becomes ingratiating, while Henry One turns glib and sardonic. Her visit triggers a flashback that reveals the origin of Henry’s fracture.

In 1981, Henry was an idealistic young priest mentored by the charismatic Father Bryant, who preached that “Appreciating beauty is to see the Mind of God.” Henry revered him, until he discovered Bryant sexually abusing an altar boy. Bryant begged for secrecy, claiming exposure would shatter the faith of the vulnerable.

Henry later realizes that Bryant had drugged him to conceal ongoing abuse. He catches him in a shed with another boy who runs away screaming. When he learns that there have been a dozen more victims, Henry smashes Bryant with an iron rake. Henry Two emerges to dispose of the body and cover up the crime, claiming that Bryant absconded with church money.

In 2001, Henry’s personalities clash over digging up the past, culminating in a violent suicide attempt.

Watching a news report about global child sex trafficking, Henry becomes consumed by the possibility that someone like Bryant was leading a vast trafficking network. He contacts FBI Special Agent Maria Ramirez, who investigated Bryant decades earlier. She tells Henry that Bryant is a hero on the Dark Web for raising pedophilia to a spiritual level. Though skeptical of Henry’s dissociative insights, Ramirez is intrigued by his theory: the most dangerous traffickers are divided selves.

Ramirez defies her superiors and concocts a secret sting. Henry is willing bait in a child’s bedroom, hidden inside an 18-wheeler, where pedophiles meet their victims. She arrests the driver and rescues the children.

But their triumph is short-lived. Thugs abduct Henry.

He’s awakened by Father Bryant, who has built a trafficking empire. Delirious with guilt, Henry had only picked up the rake 20 years earlier, then passed out.

Bryant is about to force Henry into abusing children — an initiation into shared depravity. Henry Two silently retrieves Bryant’s switchblade and slits his throat. A terrified child grabs Bryant’s gun and kills Henry.

As Bryant bleeds out, the children mourn him, revealing their psychological bondage.