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Wednesday, October 20, 2010
MOVIE REVIEW
Hereafter
Running From The End Of Life To Escape Afterlife
Cécile De France as Marie Lelay, running with a young child in Hawaii in Clint
Eastwood's "Hereafter".
Warner Brothers
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Wednesday,
October 20, 2010
Clint Eastwood's "Hereafter" is an oddly distant experience, divorced from a lot
of the ideas it presents. It could just as well be about trying to belong
in an uncertain world than it is a story of three people in different countries
grappling with death and its aftermath.
Mr. Eastwood's latest drama is set and shot entirely in San Francisco, Paris and
London. In these respective cities, someone is touched by death. A
psychic (Matt Damon), an author/TV interviewer (Cécile De France) and a young
boy (Frankie McLaren). Their stories intersect uneasily to form a bloated
treatise on connecting with dead souls.
In examining what happens after one passes, "Hereafter", which opened today in
Chicago and San Francisco, introduces ideas about the afterlife but does little
with those ideas in any depth or substance on the big screen or within the
framework of Peter Morgan's script. The visual effects and screenplay
appear to have nothing to do with each other. The effects are more a
distraction and an alienator of the story than an enhancer of it. The film
is more a dull spectacle than a discussion.
"Hereafter" is about 30 minutes too long and populated by certain characters who
don't advance the story. "Hereafter" as a whole feels more like prologue
than finished product. Mr. Eastwood invests time establishing the cities
and players therein, but the film is wanting in a meaningful exploration of the
very issues and subject matter the film's title promises. The
incompleteness is glaring. Most surprisingly, the typical emotional
resonance of many of Mr. Eastwood's recent films is unusually absent here.
Despite the puzzling nature of "Hereafter", the second successive hiccup for Mr.
Eastwood (last December's "Invictus" also
featured Mr. Damon), the film has two decent performances from Mr. Damon and Ms.
De France. With the underdeveloped material presented they do as well as
they can to keep audiences remotely interested in what transpires. Mr.
Eastwood's music is also noteworthy -- it's the best thing "Hereafter" has to
offer.
Speaking of which, "Hereafter" represents a new realm for Mr. Eastwood, who
ventures for the first time into the metaphysical and the science-fiction genre.
Kudos to him for attempting to take on something completely different at this
stage of his career. He's restless, relentless and has now made six movies
in the last five years (including "Letters From Iwo
Jima", "Changeling",
"Gran Torino".)
Unfortunately "Hereafter", with its awkward ending, doesn't know where it wants
to go or what it wants to do.
With: Jay Mohr, Bryce Dallas Howard, Richard Kind, Marthe Keller, Thierry Neuvic,
Derek Jacobi.
"Hereafter"
is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture
Association Of America for mature thematic elements including disturbing
disaster and accident images, and for brief strong
language. Some of the dialogue is in French, with subtitles in English. The film's
running time is two hours and nine minutes.
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