Hereafter (2010)

You can say this for Hereafter, Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial outing: it certainly is earnest. Sure, the softer, more pensive Eastwood is a far cry from his iconic tough-guy characters burned into the cultural lexicon, but he’s still managed to maintain his superhuman reputation. In this plodding musing on the afterlife, the 80-year-old director reveals a side that’s merely mortal.

The film follows three characters, all obsessed with death and dying, to their inevitable meeting. The first is a French journalist, Marie Lelay (Cécile de France), who is knocked unconscious by debris in a tsunami and catches a glimpse of a calming white light and shadowy human figures before being wrenched back to the land of the living. Physically she’s fine, but Marie becomes fixated on the hereafter and unable to focus on her previously successful career, which rapidly falls apart.

Meanwhile in London, a shy little boy named Marcus loses his outgoing twin brother, Jason (both played by Frankie and George McLaren). The two come from a troubled home, with a drug-addicted mother, and Jason’s death leaves Marcus unsure of how to go on living.

Finally, there’s George Lonegan (Matt Damon), a San Francisco resident who’s able to sense and talk to the dead loved ones of the people he touches. Despite prodding from his entrepreneurial older brother (Jay Mohr), George considers his gift a curse. He tries hiding from it with a blue-collar factory job before a nonstarter romance with a woman in his cooking class (Bryce Dallas Howard) forces him to run a little farther afield.

I hardly expected Hereafter to be a non-stop thrill ride, despite the sci-fi bent the trailers have tried using to sell it. Still, I didn’t think I would be sitting through a film quite as listless and melancholy as this one, certainly not after the opening tsunami scenes. These are brilliantly executed, proving that not only can great CGI (and these scenes are great) be used in the service of storytelling, but also that you can teach an old dog, (sorry, Clint) new tricks.

The rest of the film, written by two-time Oscar nominee Peter Morgan, is largely a let down, although there are definite moments when the genius of this writer-director team peek through. An example is the scene in which Marcus is unable to sleep without an extra mattress, albeit an empty one, in his room. Likewise, watching Marcus chase after a baseball cap (his brother’s) in a London Underground station as a seemingly endless parade of strangers kick it just out of his reach is a touching parallel to his later search to find someone who can help him reconnect with Jason. The slow, painful scene juxtaposes superbly with the jarring violence of what happens next.

But Hereafter is character-driven to a fault. I know Morgan has compelling character-driven stories in his oeuvre, having penned riveting scripts for The Last King of Scotland, The Queen, and Frost/Nixon. In this film, though, scenes of George eating alone in his kitchen or Marie pitching a book on former French president Francois Mitterrand aren’t enthralling. They help paint a clearer picture of the characters, but don’t propel the story forward or help us understand why their meeting is destined. You know these three people will come together because they’re in the same movie–and because Marcus finds George in a Google search–but there’s little else in the film that seems to demand it.

Some of the blame for Hereafter’s inability to connect, in spite of its best intentions, rests on the shoulders of its actors. De France is attractive in a decidedly French sort of way. Her performance is solid but not virtuoso. Damon delivers his lines, even the psychic readings, with the aloof, antiseptic coolness of a doctor’s office receptionist. He finally comes to life in the final few minutes of the film when he meets Marie and “reads” Marcus (bring a hankie for that part) but it feels awfully late in the film to fall in love with your protagonist.

Meanwhile, the supporting players, namely Howard and Mohr, are distracting at best. Throughout, the former seems nervous, while the latter borders on manic. And I kept trying to figure out if either–or both–was wearing a wig.

Still, there’s something about Hereafter that I can neither name nor let go of. Sure, it doesn’t have a plot to speak of, and the actors make strange choices. But in those fleeting moments when the film is good, it shows an understanding of both human emotion and great filmmaking. Plus, it is so damn earnest. Perhaps it’ll grow on me hereafter.