The Six Wives of Henry Lefay 2009

Henry Lefay, Tim Allen, is introduced as a successful American audio and video equipment store owner, a successor to the flashy, fast-talking salesmen like Crazy Eddie. The story opens with the shocking news that he has apparently died in a parasailing accident in Mexico, leaving his grieving family to navigate a tangle of grief, confusion, and competing desires. The family cannot settle on whether Henry would have preferred cremation or burial, and Autumn, his present wife, quickly asserts her claim to the inheritance and the power to decide what happens next, setting a tense, unresolved tone for the proceedings.

As the funeral plans unfold, crewcuts of grief mix with stubborn wills. A closed casket funeral is held, and at the heart of the gathering is Effa, S. Epatha Merkerson, who arrives with a long-hidden past: she is Henry’s first wife, a marriage that began after he dropped out of college and lasted only three months. Effa reveals that Henry had reached out to her again recently, exchanging daily emails, which unsettles Autumn and deepens the feeling that nothing about Henry is straightforward.

A storm of chaos erupts when it is discovered that the cremation was carried out by Ophelia, forged in signatures to enable the cremation. Autumn, furious at what she perceives as betrayal and manipulation, tries to drive Ophelia down with a car. The conflict intensifies as Sarah Jane reveals that Henry had proposed to her as well, adding another unpredictable layer to the revived life Henry left behind. Barbie, Henry’s daughter, urges Autumn to find some sense of closure by scattering Henry’s ashes where he once found happiness. Yet the plot thickens when Ophelia swipes the ashes for herself, a scuffle ensues, and the cremation urn shatters on the ground, scattering ashes across the sidewalk.

Amid the funeral rituals, a haunting harmonica echoes in the background, guiding the family to a revelation: Henry is alive. It turns out that on the day of the parasail incident, another man shared Henry’s parasail trip, fell into the water, and died. Henry had left his own identification behind and spent the time afterward in a bar, drinking. He returns home only to discover not a quiet burial but a looming ceremony that he must confront.

Meanwhile, Barbie’s personal story threads through the day. Her boyfriend Lloyd, played by Eric Christian Olsen, proposes to her, but she declines. A lunch with her father unravels more personal history, and Mae, her grandmother, fills in urgency by telling Barbie that her mom, Kate, is in the hospital. Barbie spends time with her former love Stevie, tries to move on, and then reconsiders, ultimately reaching out to Lloyd again in a moment of clarity.

The film threads through Henry’s attempt to reinsert himself into the life he left behind. He encounters Barbie and the family, and the long-standing tensions between love, money, and memory begin to mellow as understandings emerge. The reunion culminates in Barbie deciding to move forward with Lloyd, and Henry, in a poignant celebration, dances with all his wives in a symbolic embrace of the past, present, and what could have been.

In the closing moments, Ophelia doubles down on her fate by revealing that she is preparing to marry Henry for a third time, turning the funeral into a surreal tableau where life, love, and improvisation intersect in an unexpected, comic, and heartfelt convergence. The result is a story that refuses to settle on a single truth, instead embracing the messy, comic, and tender truth of a family learning to live with the aftereffects of grief, memory, and forgiveness.