I'll be honest with you: the trailers for Hereafer never really grabbed me. But with the only other major release this weekend being Paranormal Activity 2 (the original of which scared the living daylights out of me), I opted for something a little tamer. Besides, Clint Eastwood has proved time and again to be a brilliant director, and I like Matt Damon quite a bit. How could a movie involving the two of them possibly be bad, right? So much for logic...
Hereafter opens with the deceptively bucolic scenes of a tropical paradise. Popular French reporter Marie DeLay (Cecile De France) is vacationing with her boss and lover, Didier (Thierry Neuvic). Just before the couple is set to return to Europe, they become among the thousands of victims of a deadly tsunami. Marie in particular has a very close call and, despite being relatively uninjured and back at work, she simply can't get past what she claims to have experienced during the course of her near death experience.
George Lonegan (Matt Damon) lives on the other side of the world where he's a factory worker in San Francisco with a bizarre bent for Charles Dickens novels. Though George is purportedly one of the few psychics around who's actually not a fraud, he wants nothing to do with talking to the dead any more. His brother Billy (Jay Mohr) is all too aware of the money that can be made should George take up doing readings again, and he does everything possible to convince his brother that he ought to use his "gift" despite the fact George himself considers it more of a curse.
Meanwhile, in London a pair of twin boys named Marcus and Jason (Frankie/George McClaren) are dealing with difficult circumstances at home. Things only get worse for Marcus when he loses someone close to him and sets himself on a mission to find out anything he can about life after death and communications with the dead.
The three stories obviously come together late in the film, but getting there is tedious at best and the resolution can only be described as anticlimactic. The actors are good, the script isn't bad, and the direction and cinematography are excellent (special kudos go to the special effects wizard who created an extraordinarily believable disaster with the tsunami and its aftermath). So what's the problem? I was bored.
Hereafter moves at a crawl. The subject was kept nebulous enough that I never really got all that interested in it, and I frankly didn't care much about any of the characters, either. That's no reflection on the capabilities of the actors who were uniformly quite good, but rather the one-dimensionality of the characters they played. In the midst of death, I found myself wondering if I'd remembered to put cat food on the grocery list and whether or not I'd have time on Saturday to get a pedicure. Yes, I was that bored.
BOTTOM LINE: When Hereafter ended, the audience was largely silent—and not in a good way. On my way out the door, I heard the couple behind me talking about the movie, and one said, "Well, that was a waste of time!" I couldn't have summed it up better myself. In fact, the only reason Hereafter gets four stars is because the cinematography is, indeed, brilliant. ADDED NOTE: Critical reviews of Hereafter have been largely quite positive. While I'm at a loss to give you one single good reason to see the movie, others disagree.
POLITICAL NOTES: None (US-related; there is some talk of former French leader Mitterand).
FAMILY SUITABILITY: Hereafter is rated PG-13 for "mature thematic elements including disturbing disaster and accident images, and for brief strong language." Kids of all ages will be bored out of their minds during Hereafter—and if you're a parent, you know what happens when kids get bored! While the rating is largely appropriate and older kids would be just fine from a parental guidance perspective, I'm still not willing to recommend Hereafter to anyone of any age for any reason. Sorry.
Hereafter opens with the deceptively bucolic scenes of a tropical paradise. Popular French reporter Marie DeLay (Cecile De France) is vacationing with her boss and lover, Didier (Thierry Neuvic). Just before the couple is set to return to Europe, they become among the thousands of victims of a deadly tsunami. Marie in particular has a very close call and, despite being relatively uninjured and back at work, she simply can't get past what she claims to have experienced during the course of her near death experience.
George Lonegan (Matt Damon) lives on the other side of the world where he's a factory worker in San Francisco with a bizarre bent for Charles Dickens novels. Though George is purportedly one of the few psychics around who's actually not a fraud, he wants nothing to do with talking to the dead any more. His brother Billy (Jay Mohr) is all too aware of the money that can be made should George take up doing readings again, and he does everything possible to convince his brother that he ought to use his "gift" despite the fact George himself considers it more of a curse.
Meanwhile, in London a pair of twin boys named Marcus and Jason (Frankie/George McClaren) are dealing with difficult circumstances at home. Things only get worse for Marcus when he loses someone close to him and sets himself on a mission to find out anything he can about life after death and communications with the dead.
The three stories obviously come together late in the film, but getting there is tedious at best and the resolution can only be described as anticlimactic. The actors are good, the script isn't bad, and the direction and cinematography are excellent (special kudos go to the special effects wizard who created an extraordinarily believable disaster with the tsunami and its aftermath). So what's the problem? I was bored.
Hereafter moves at a crawl. The subject was kept nebulous enough that I never really got all that interested in it, and I frankly didn't care much about any of the characters, either. That's no reflection on the capabilities of the actors who were uniformly quite good, but rather the one-dimensionality of the characters they played. In the midst of death, I found myself wondering if I'd remembered to put cat food on the grocery list and whether or not I'd have time on Saturday to get a pedicure. Yes, I was that bored.
BOTTOM LINE: When Hereafter ended, the audience was largely silent—and not in a good way. On my way out the door, I heard the couple behind me talking about the movie, and one said, "Well, that was a waste of time!" I couldn't have summed it up better myself. In fact, the only reason Hereafter gets four stars is because the cinematography is, indeed, brilliant. ADDED NOTE: Critical reviews of Hereafter have been largely quite positive. While I'm at a loss to give you one single good reason to see the movie, others disagree.
POLITICAL NOTES: None (US-related; there is some talk of former French leader Mitterand).
FAMILY SUITABILITY: Hereafter is rated PG-13 for "mature thematic elements including disturbing disaster and accident images, and for brief strong language." Kids of all ages will be bored out of their minds during Hereafter—and if you're a parent, you know what happens when kids get bored! While the rating is largely appropriate and older kids would be just fine from a parental guidance perspective, I'm still not willing to recommend Hereafter to anyone of any age for any reason. Sorry.