Roald Dahl was kind of a mean guy. If you’ve ever read his biographies, you know he wasn't exactly the "jolly storyteller" his book covers suggest. He was prickly, complicated, and often cynical. That’s exactly why The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar stands out so much in his bibliography. It’s remarkably earnest. When Wes Anderson finally got around to adapting it for Netflix in 2023, people expected the usual pastel-colored whimsy—which they got—but they also got something much weirder and more soulful than a standard short film.
Henry Sugar isn't your typical protagonist. He’s a wealthy, idle playboy. He’s the kind of man who lives for the weekend and thinks "hard work" is choosing which silk tie to wear to a casino. But the story takes this shallow man and puts him through a spiritual wringer. It's about a guy who learns to see without using his eyes, only to realize that once you can see everything, the things you used to want don't matter anymore.
Honestly, it's a bit of a trip.
What Actually Happens in the Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar?
The plot is a Russian nesting doll. You've got Wes Anderson (playing a version of Dahl) telling a story about Henry Sugar, who is reading a book about a man named Imhrat Khan, who is telling a story about a yogi. It sounds like a headache, but on screen, it moves with this frantic, theatrical energy.
Henry Sugar finds a thin, blue exercise book in a library. This isn't just any book; it’s a report by two doctors about a man who could see without his eyes. This man, Imhrat Khan, claimed he could see through blindfolds, dough, and even metal plates. Henry, being a greedy little soul, realizes that if he can learn this "subtle art," he can go to the casinos and see the value of every card in the deck.
He spends years practicing. This is the part people usually forget—it takes him three years of staring at a candle flame and visualizing his own face to master the first step. He’s not a hero; he’s just a guy who wants to cheat at blackjack. But a funny thing happens on the way to the casino. The intense meditation required to gain this "superpower" actually changes his brain. By the time he can see through a playing card, he doesn't care about the money anymore.
It’s a classic "be careful what you wish for" trope, but flipped on its head. Usually, those stories end in tragedy. Here, the tragedy is that Henry becomes too good for the world he lives in. He wins a fortune, looks at the pile of cash, and feels nothing but boredom.
The Wes Anderson Factor: Why the Style Matters
You can't talk about The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar without talking about how it looks. It’s 39 minutes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, and Ben Kingsley basically doing a stage play where the sets move while they're talking.
Some people find it annoying. I get it. The actors look directly into the camera and narrate their own actions. "He said, as he sat down," says Benedict Cumberbatch, while he literally sits down. It’s meta. It’s dry. But it serves a purpose. By keeping the narration exactly as Dahl wrote it, Anderson preserves that specific, slightly cruel, slightly magical tone of the original 1977 short story.
Why the framing works:
- The Narrative Layers: It feels like a secret being passed down.
- The Visual Precision: Every frame is a painting, but it’s a painting that’s constantly being repainted by stagehands in the background.
- The Brevity: At under 40 minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome.
There’s a specific scene where Imhrat Khan (Ben Kingsley) explains his training. He describes traveling across India to find a specific yogi. It’s filmed with such a strange, flat perspective that it feels less like a movie and more like a pop-up book. This style works because the story itself is an internal one. Most of the "action" is just a man sitting in a chair, thinking. How do you make that cinematic? You make the world around him dance.
The Real Inspiration Behind the Magic
A lot of people think Dahl just made up the "seeing without eyes" thing out of thin air. He didn't. He was actually fascinated by real-world reports of ESP and Eastern mysticism that were floating around in the mid-20th century.
Specifically, the character of Imhrat Khan was loosely based on Kuda Bux, a Pakistani mystic and magician known as "The Man with the X-Ray Eyes." Bux became a sensation in the 1930s and 40s by performing incredible feats of sight while his eyes were heavily bandaged with dough and surgical tape. He even walked across a fire pit in London in front of scientists to prove his mental control over his body.
Dahl took these "real" accounts and asked: What if this wasn't a circus act? What if it was a spiritual burden? That’s where the character of Henry Sugar comes in. Henry is the Western consumerist version of Kuda Bux. He takes a sacred, difficult art and tries to use it to buy a better car. The tension between the "magic" and the "money" is what gives the story its teeth.
Is Henry Sugar Actually a Good Person?
This is the big debate among fans of the book and the film. At the start, Henry is objectively terrible. He’s wealthy because he inherited it. He’s never worked. He’s "one of those men who are like seaweed," drifting wherever the tide takes them.
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But by the end, he’s spent his life setting up orphanages across the globe under various aliases. He dies alone, having never told anyone about his gift. Is that redemption? Or is he just a man who found a more interesting hobby than gambling?
I think it's the latter, which actually makes it more human. Henry doesn't become a saint because he wants to be "good." He becomes a saint because his old life became transparent—literally. When you can see through people's skin to their veins and bones, and through walls to the poverty outside, you can't really enjoy a steak dinner in a private club anymore. His "goodness" is a byproduct of his perspective.
Why You Should Watch It (Or Re-read It) Now
We live in an era of 3-hour blockbusters that feel like they're 5 hours long. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is a masterpiece of efficiency. It’s a dense, literary experience that you can finish in the time it takes to eat lunch.
It’s also a reminder that Wes Anderson is at his best when he has a strong, slightly dark source material to restrain his whimsy. Dahl provides the skeleton; Anderson provides the skin.
If you've only ever seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Matilda, this is going to feel like a different species of Dahl. It’s for the adults who still remember what it felt like to believe that if you just concentrated hard enough, you could make something move with your mind. It treats that childhood impulse with total, deadpan seriousness.
How to get the most out of the story:
- Watch the Netflix short first. It’s the most accessible entry point and the visuals help ground the "nesting doll" narrative.
- Read the original short story. It's found in the collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. The prose is sharper and a bit more biting than the film.
- Check out the companion shorts. Anderson also adapted The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison. They’re darker and weirder, but they fill out the world.
- Look up Kuda Bux. Seeing the black-and-white footage of the real "X-ray eye" man makes the fictionalized version feel much more grounded in history.
The real takeaway from Henry Sugar isn't about magic or cards or even Roald Dahl. It's about the idea that focus is a form of power. In a world where our attention is bought and sold every second, there's something quietly radical about a story where a man wins at life simply by learning how to pay attention.
Henry Sugar stops looking at the world and starts seeing it. There's a big difference. One leads to a pile of money you can't spend; the other leads to a life that actually matters.
Practical Steps for Fans of the Story
- Explore the "Dahl for Adults" Collection: If you liked the tone of this, seek out Roald Dahl's short stories for adults, like Tales of the Unexpected. They are much darker, often featuring macabre twists that make Henry Sugar look like a bedtime story.
- Analyze the Stagecraft: If you're a film student or just a buff, re-watch the film with the sound off. Notice how the sets are moved by actors in gray jumpsuits. It's a masterclass in "Brechtian Distanciation"—the idea of reminding the audience they are watching a play to make them think more deeply about the message.
- Visit the Roald Dahl Museum: Located in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, the museum houses the original manuscripts and the "Writing Hut" where Dahl penned these stories. You can see the actual blue exercise books that inspired the one Henry Sugar finds.
- Practice Mindfulness (The Non-Casino Way): While you probably won't learn to see through cards, the visualization techniques described—focusing on a single point for rising intervals of time—are actual foundational practices in various meditation traditions that improve cognitive focus and stress management.