HEREAFTER sees the returning team-up of Clint Eastwood and Matt Damon, last since 2010 Oscar nominated INVICTUS.
The film tells the story of three people scattered across the globe; George (Matt Damon), a blue collar worker living in San Francisco cursed an ability to talk to the dead. There’s Marie (Ceclie de France), a reporter from Paris that has a near death experience after being hit by a tsunami. In London Marcus(George & Frankie McLaren) is forever seperated from his twin brother, Jason, when Jason is killed. Each characters life is dramatically changed with their brush of the afterlife making each consumed with learning what happens after death.
This is Clint Eastwood’s first foray into the realm of the supernatural, not that this is a horror film or on the same level as GHOST. This is a film about people finding peace in life with the knowledge that there is something after this world. The three stories on their own would make interesting and moving films but with the segments in the same film dilutes the possibility of any real depth or emotional attachment to the characters. The audience does see the lives of the three main characters living in tragic moments but before they reach any sort of emotional climax it switches to the next character and you have to remember what’s supposed to be going on with them.
Matt Damon and Cecile de France delivery strong performances as the languishing psychic and the reporter on a downward slope. Each having a number of core emotional scenes such as with Damon being proven right that you shouldn’t know everything about another person when he reluctantly conducts a “reading” for a girl he likes, Bryce Dallas Howard, and reveals she was abused as a child, forcing her to run from him. And with Cecile finding out that she is being replaced in every aspect by a younger and sexier ‘model’. The story of Marcus in London is not realised very well and at some points is verging on comedic. This is all down too the acting of the McLaren twins which is dreadful. It isn’t their fault though as Eastwood carries on hiring non-actors and never being able to choose one that has any talent, another example of this is with the character of Thao in GRAN TORINO, the boy that melts the heart of the ageing racist.
Three quarters of the way through the film all the characters begin to come together in London as Damon, who has a passion for Charles Dickens, journeys to London, followed by Cecile who is launching her just finished book on the afterlife at the London Book Fair where of course Marcus ends up being. The first half shows some promise but once they all converse on London it quickly goes sour as it all is happens to end very neat and easily, as if everyone had given up and they just want to wrap it up as soon as possible.
The film does have a few things going for it as previously states regarding the acting from Damon and Cecile, with some good moments but not enough to carry the film.
HEREAFTER comes out this Friday Jan 28th.
