At the age of 80, Clint Eastwood hasn't shown any signs of slowing down. He may have retired from acting, but his output as director remains prolific. Whenever awards season rolls around, you know a new Eastwood picture will be released. His films have been in varied genres, whether they be crime thrillers (Mystic River), war movies (Flags of Our Fathers, Letters to Iwo Jima), or sports dramas (Million Dollar Baby, Invictus). His next project will be a biopic about J. Edgar Hoover with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead.
Eastwood ventures slightly out of his comfort zone with Hereafter, a trio of stories centered on death and the afterlife. Eastwood is joined by Peter Morgan, a screenwriter known more for politically charged films like The Last King of Scotland, The Queen, and Frost/Nixon. Morgan was apparently inspired to write the script following the death of a close friend.
Hereafter begins with the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. French television personality Marie LeLay (Cecile De France) is vacationing in Thailand with her producer/boyfriend (Thierry Neuvic) when the tidal wave hits. She is swept away and nearly killed by a careening automobile. Marie is barely revived, but not before having ethereal visions of white light and ghostly figures. From then on, she has trouble reconnecting with her normal life. She attempts to take time off by writing a book on former French president Francois Mitterrand. Instead, she winds up researching a new book on the afterlife. Her newfound fascination alienates her from her boyfriend and colleagues.
George Lonegan (Matt Damon) was once a psychic of some renown with the legitimate ability to speak with the dead. Imagine him as the kid from The Sixth Sense all grown up. George has retreated from the spotlight, making a modest living as a forklift operator in San Francisco. His brother, Billy (Jay Mohr), keeps trying to convince George that they can both make a lot more money by exploiting his powers. George disagrees, believing them to be a curse, rather than a gift. We see just how these psychic talents interfere with his life when he is introduced to Melanie (Bryce Dallas Howard) at a cooking class. It's a meet cute straight out of the romantic comedy playbook, but the budding relationship doesn't get the chance for a happy ending.
The third storyline is set in London and follows twin brothers Marcus and Jason (Frankie & George McLaren who alternate roles). Marcus depends on the wiser and more mature Jason, who is twelve minutes older, to take care of him and their heroin-addicted mother. When Jason is killed in a tragic car accident, Marcus is placed in foster care and struggles to go on with his life
Eastwood excels at making these types of prestige pictures. He has an old-fashioned sense of storytelling. He is content to give his characters room to breathe and never resorts to superfluous camera tricks. Hereafter marks the first time Eastwood has used extensive special effects. The opening tsunami sequence is a remarkable achievement in CGI that is shot in a very intimate manner. Eastwood shoots this massive natural disaster at a human level by focusing on Marie as she is battered and thrashed about. Eastwood is more concerned about capturing the harrowing emotions of the event rather than creating widespread destruction, a lesson that Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich could learn.
The rest of the film doesn't quite live up to the promise of the start. Cecile De France is wonderful and I admit to having a crush on her since High Tension (just something about a French girl wielding a chainsaw). However, her storyline remains the weakest of the three. The scenes dealing with her disconnect are mundane and fail to convey the existential turmoil she faces. Damon appears in the strongest storyline and he gives a powerful, yet understated, performance. Unlike films such as Babel and Crash, Hereafter doesn't unite its characters through tenuous strands or contrive to intersect its various plots. The storylines run parallel and only converge in the final act. The resolution remains unsatisfying and the convergence of plot threads feels more like an obligation rather than a germane end to the journey. Eastwood is known for his preference to shoot the script's first draft, choosing not to tweak the writer's words. Perhaps, that's exactly what Hereafter needed.
In the end, Eastwood has created a film about metaphysical subject matter that is grounded in a down-to-earth reality. The performances of the cast are good enough to overcome the meandering plots and the occasional bluntness of Eastwood's direction.
Rating: **
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