Movie Review: Hereafter (2010)
Eastwood's latest disappoints by not accomplishing much
Photo: Warner Bros.
NOTE: This review was originally published on September 12, 2010 after I screened Hereafter at the Toronto International Film Festival.
With expectation and anticipation Clint Eastwood's Hereafter screened for a small group of press at the Toronto International Film Festival. Midway through, expectation and anticipation disappeared and were replaced by hope. I hoped something would happen of consequence, something that would give me some idea why I was watching this film. Eastwood, working with an original script penned by Peter Morgan (The Queen), works on three separate plot lines only to bring them together through a matter of weak coincidence. His message at the end is quite unclear as this exploration of death seems to want to say something, but has no idea what.
The cast includes Matt Damon, Cécile De France, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jay Mohr, Derek Jacobi, Marthe Keller, Richard Kind, Frankie McLaren, George McLaren, Céline Sallette, Franz Drameh and Jenifer Lewis. For more information on this film including pictures, trailers and a detailed synopsis choose from the following menu.
Review
"Hereafter" is a Warner Bros. release, directed by Clint Eastwood and is rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements including disturbing disaster and accident images, and for brief strong language. The running time is 2 hours 3 minutes.
It's fairly obvious how these plot strands will all come together, but the journey along the way could have been much more revealing. As it turns out it is all very uninteresting and quite trivial. Marie can't shake her visions, Marcus hunts down psychics looking for answers and George strikes up a relationship with a young woman from Pittsburgh (Bryce Dallas Howard) while keeping his brother (Jay Mohr) at bay as he continually pressures George to go back to making money as a psychic. Truthfully, it's all a bit of a snooze.
The acting is decent. Damon and de France are both quite good. Damon in particular has three solid scenes, but like Gran Torino, when there's a bit of an emotional uptick the child actors have a hard time keeping up with Eastwood's fast paced shoot and their performances show it.
From a filmmaking standpoint the most interesting discussion piece is Eastwood's use of CGI to mimic a tsunami during the film's opening sequence and the brief glimpses into the afterlife we get throughout the film. It's interesting primarily because Eastwood isn't a filmmaker we typically associate with such techniques, but he's also a filmmaker unafraid to try new things and he does just fine here. None of the visuals feel too big or as if he is trying to wow us with effects in place of story. He's not trying to make 2012 and I don't think we'd ever expect him to.
Otherwise, he's working once again with Tom Stern for cinematography and Stern brings the muted color palette we've come to expect from Eastwood's films over the past several years. Eastwood also composed the score, which is almost identical to what we've heard in his films as of late. As competent as these aspects of the story may be, neither seems to fit this film, primarily the score. I got the impression Eastwood maintained a rather low-key score so as not to let the film get away from him and become more about spectacle than story. It's a mark of a true filmmaker and I respect the decision greatly, but this film needed something and it wasn't softly played acoustic guitar.
On a whole Hereafter just doesn't accomplish much. As the scenes pass by you suddenly reach a point where you're telling yourself something has got to happen soon. It never does and at just over two hours in length it makes for a rather long haul.
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I just came back from seeing this. I have to say, I was hoping you'd be wrong and it'd be better than you let on. Unfortunately, my hopes were a little too high.
Eastwood is usually really good at building a story with characters you care about however I felt really let down by this one. It was very drawn out with much too little pay off.
I found myself asking the same question you did, why am I watching this movie? It just got sooooo boring after a while. I'm surprised that in a large theater that was about two thirds filled, no one left. i guess we were all just waiting for something miraculous to happen. We(or I anyway) were left waiting till the credits started to roll.
Just came back from seeing the best film that I have seen in a very long time! Wonderful story,keep me interested every minute and the acting is wonderful. It should be up for an academy award! Loved it.
It was a good story, however; so much more could've been done with this story to make it more interesting. The acting was great and my heart ached for Marcus.
Of all Clint Eastwood's movies, this was my least favorite.
I'm sorry but this is my least favorite of all Clint's movies. It was just so slow and boring.
If you don't post this comment-I'll know you don't want people to see the 1st decent film made in a long time!
Funny thing is, I do wonder how you arrived at the decision of a C. I saw this a few weeks ago and thought it was awful. It said nothing, bored me to near tears, and I too, was only HOPING something would come from it. It never did. I gave this one of the worst reviews I have ever given a film on my site.
I saw this Movie last night. It was very slow in developing, very little to grasp on to and I actually did see people get up and leave. I also took a little Nap, LOL, It has to be the worst Movie I have seen this year.
Good thing I don't read reviews before seeing a movie. I surely would've skipped this one had I read this review. On the other hand I don't think I would've minded missing this film. Not very good, drawn out and a bit boring. It took way too much time to connect the stories or to make any sense of anything.