Au-delà

On the way home from seeing this terrific movie, I stopped at a light, a few cars in front waiting to turn right. Around us, the sun had just set, a full white moon was high and the reflections of brake lights bounced off gas stations and car dealerships.

What an amazing world we live in. There is so much in the five miles between my house and the theater where I saw the movie that I could never experience it all. Moments arrive and disappear and the the people shift, move, appear and disappear.

I think most of us need some kind of assurance that it all goes on forever, that our open windows aren't just blacked over and sealed at death.

Clint Eastwood has made a quiet, reflective, thoughtful film on this condition, this need for forever. It's not a flashy paranormal probe of ghosts and goblins, spirits and such.

Taking three central lives we see our need for a hereafter from a French woman who has experienced something before being revived, from a twin boy who has lost his brother and from a lonely man who seems able to capture something from beyond this life. Or perhaps he just captures something from those who come to him.

Cecile De France is stunning as a television reporter who touches her own death and returns. Frankie (or is it George) McLaren is good as the young boy. And Matt Damon's restrained performance is a revelation.

Eastwood has the assured hand that allows long segments in French with English subtitles and a juncture with two disasters and such a touchy-feely subject, and yet it works. Quietly. Thoughtfully.

He also has the good sense to let us draw our own conclusions.

Hereafter is a slow, quiet study on the effect that death and the dearly departed have on the living. 

It's not really a ghost story or even a very supernatural movie. The three main characters each have felt death's power in different ways in their life. George (Matt Damon), a man who can contact the deceased, has fled from his abilities because they keep him from having a normal life. Marie (Cecile de France) is a journalist who has a near-death experience during a tsunami, and becomes consumed with understanding what she saw. And in London, a young British boy is desperate to contact a lost family member one last time. 

The three separate stories do eventually connect, but that's not really where the value of Hereafter lies. I can see this film being a source of frustration for some viewers eager for a traditional conflict and resolution or character arc, but those things aren't really Eastwood's priority.The movie doesn't have much of a "point", other than how death is such an important part of all of our lives, even as it's also probably the most mysterious. 

I liked it, but I'm hesitant in recommending it. Slow-paced movies like these need the right audience. It's fairly different from Eastwood's other movies, and I wouldn't mind seeing him tackle something like this, again.

I have respect for Clint Eastwood, both as an actor and a director. Hereafter is not quite among Eastwood's best, but I personally loved it and consider it one of the most underrated movies of 2010-2011. It is beautifully filmed and edited, and Eastwood once again shows what a great director he is. And also as a composer too, Eastwood writes the music here also and with the guitar and piano rhythms it is quite simple but very understated and effective, I found it more memorable than Changeling. The script is thoughtful as well and the characters are interesting enough. I have often heard and seen criticisms of Hereafter being too slow or the story being too ambiguous. I can understand, but I found the slow pace worked, this is a very quiet and reflective film, the pace conveyed this very well. The story is ambiguous, but complex, thought-provoking and moving also. Matt Damon is superb, as is Cecile De France. Bryce Dallas Howard also excels in one of her better performances. Overall, a great movie if not for all perhaps. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Hereafter (2010) My Review i didn't know if I would be able to review this movie, the film is not about solid moments that one can simply talk about occurring in a film, but rather the experiences that forge who we are, and where those pieces as people feel they are searching but not finding someone to understand their differences, and those two pieces coming together finally between two extraordinary people crafted by extreme circumstance. It's impossible to describe, but also impossible not to feel, and so this movie is more about a feeling, a longing within us all to find meaning, to be validated perhaps, for who we are, not for what we do.

Three people in different parts of the world deal with death in their own way... a boy loses his brother, a woman nearly drowns, and a man burdened by his psychic ability he calls more curse than gift... we follow these burned characters as they stumble with what they understand, and what they cannot deny...

The movie will slip by many, those only looking for the mundane, action-packed, roller-coaster ride, but for those looking for a visceral, meaningful, timeless gem, look no further, for you will find it here.

Clint Eastwood decided to take a peak at what his vision of the other side looks like in Hereafter. This is probably the most speculated upon topic that mankind has, we all have our own ideas. At one time this was the purview of organized religion, but over the past century they've lost their monopoly.

Hereafter concerns three people, American psychic Matt Damon, French journalist Cecile De France, and British adolescent Frank/George McLaren who are twins and play the same role. One is looking for a sign from the afterlife, one gets one, and the third does not want to be getting any more of them.

It's kind of unusual for a film to start with a spectacular display of technical effects, but Hereafter features that as De France is caught in a tsunami where she was probably technically dead and then rescued. During that time she experiences some strange things and she's changed forever by it. She drops everything else to research into the topic.

Matt Damon is a good place to start, but this man wants nothing, but obscurity. He is a psychic who at one time made a living at it, but the demands and pressures put on him for his gift became unbearable. When he breaks down and gives an interview to someone at his brother's request, it all starts to come back so he flees to London, the home and workplace of Charles Dickens who as an author Damon thinks is tops. I could really relate to Damon's character, there are times that pressures make one long for obscurity, Damon initially finds it as a factory worker, but that blows up on him as the film shows.

Frank/George McLaren is a British kid, twins in fact and one of them is abruptly killed. As twins they were by nature close and it's like half of yourself no longer exists. He just wants some reassurance that his other half is fine somewhere on some plane of existence. I know that feeling too, a lot of it is losing someone and never having had a chance to say goodbye to them.

Though Hereafter got an Oscar for visual effects both for the tsunami and later for a London Subway bombing, Clint Eastwood gets some good performances out of his human cast members as well. The McLaren twins are quite touching in fact and come off as real kids.

Some might find Hereafter unsettling, but I liked it and go out and raid your Redbox to find it.