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Another gift that was given to me through this experience was the gift of sobriety. Maybe that wouldn't have happened if my wife hadn't passed. With the sobriety, then that clarity and understanding and appreciation for life unfold, and all of a sudden you just realize, All right, I'm 46, and this is where I am. And I look at the calendar ahead of me and hope that three weeks, six months, five years from now, I'm here to appreciate both the good times and the bad times.

How has your daughter helped you in the healing process?

Pellington: Oh, my god. The way children see the world, it's profound. You're their protector, and yet, in a way, their innocence and way of seeing the world makes you look at every experience differently. That was a great joy for me. She had development issues—not neurological but some physical things—but she was resilient and strong. Seeing her determination fueled me, and my determination fueled her. And I think we just kind of rose out of a very dark place and became two whole people. And she still has challenges with it and so do I. Grief never leaves; it just changes. You never get over it. But I feel lucky now that I had a wonderful woman who taught me about love for eleven years. There's a lot of people who go through life and never have that.

What was your wife's name?

Pellington: Jennifer.

Speaking of names, names play a significant role in this movie, starting with Patience at the grocery store?

Pellington: And Hope as a neighbor. [The character's name is Esperanza, Spanish for "hope."] And Light.

Light?

Pellington: Dawn, the next-door neighbor that Henry kind of falls for.

Ah. I was going to ask if "Dawn" represents a new day?

Pellington: Yes, I think so. After I read the script I said to Albert, "You might get nailed by the critics for the specificity of those names." But he was resolute and said that was the design, it being kind of a fable.

What about Henry? Does "Poole" represent water?

Pellington: No, I don't think so. But there's water imagery in the film, representing a yearning to go back to childhood, the big thematic of the ocean and womb. I'm a Pisces, and water is an extremely protective, nurturing, healing kind of thematic image. But it had nothing to do with the character's name.

Pellington with Luke Wilson, who plays the title role

When Henry has the water balloon fight with Dawn and her little daughter Millie, he gets drenched and basically gives up the fight and says, "I surrender." Sure seemed like a baptism …

Pellington: Yeah, for sure. Unconsciously yes, but on an archetypical design level. I kind of designed the film with a sequence by sequence manifesto—Hope knocks on Henry's door, Hope persists, Henry pushes Hope away, Hope is unrelenting. That's all in Albert's architecture of the script, and I design everything metaphorically and abstractly on the content of the script, and then design the sequences around their emotional intentions.

What do you want people to take away from Henry Poole?

Pellington: I want them to say, "That made me feel good and positive and hopeful." I want them to realize that there are films that can be small yet make them feel less alone in the world. I think that's a big thing. The poet Rita Dove once said that poetry can make people feel less alone and disconnected from the world. If this film can help in that respect, that would be great.

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