Clint Eastwood has a long and storied professional history that spans across half a century and includes some of the most prolific titles of all time as well as some of the most memorable Oscar contenders of the last ten years. His latest flick, Hereafter, is certainly not one of those aforementioned movies.
Hereafter is the story of a retired psychic (Matt Damon) recently laid off of his job in construction, just looking to find his place in the world while being hounded with a what he considers a psychic ‘curse’ that keeps him withdrawn and alone. His brother (played by an alarmingly aged Jay Mohr) looks to drag him back into the psychic reading game in order to best ‘help people’ (see: make money). Auxiliary stories revolve around a twin who desperately wants to reconnect with his deceased brother and a news anchor who experiences a touch of the afterlife after surviving a near-death experience.
The synopsis above does a good job of translating precisely what the major errors are within the film. A lot technically happens, in Hereafter, but very little actually comes of any of it and said outcomes that do come to fruition feel forced, juxtaposed, and flaccid. Eastwood has chosen a story that really has very little to tell, with three central characters who do little more than awkwardly bounce against one another. By film’s end, you are left feeling unsatisfied, wishing that simply ONE of the three stories had some sort of substance to dig into. Sadly, though, each character truly does have the propensity to tell their own, individual, 90-minute story, this is just a classic case of a screenwriter with too much to say ultimately saying nothing.
Matt Damon’s George Lonegan is the kind of tortured, hapless hero that knows the extent of his own abilities and simply cannot overcome the fears that he has associated with them. While he’s certainly knowledgeable enough to know the positive aspects of his psychic craft, he also has clearly broken his fair share of human beings down by bringing up the past in ways they simply were not ready for. The first girl that we see him get close to simply leaves in an emotional whirlwind after George relates a message sent to her from a relative who was too “touchy” in her past. And while much is done to address Damon’s character’s clearly solitary, lone existence, it is the only piece of substantial acting in the entirety of the piece. The other two main characters, young, now lone twin, Jason, played by twins Frankie and George McLaren and French newscaster, Marie, played by Cecile De France give two of the weakest performances I have seen in a theatrical release in quite some time. They come to their roles without almost zero emotional investment and very little, if any sincere point of view. Either the editing left out insurmountable chunks of dialogue which better flesh out these characters, or Clint Eastwood really knows how to sink a movie through a miserable supporting cast.
The score is another point of incredible weakness that merits speaking to. Every single note that is played to underscore an action, mood, or tone in the film actually managed to bristle me out of my seat and call attention to itself. I could not come across a single moment when I felt that the tone of the score even mirrored, let alone added to, the tone of the film. The underlying trend seemed to be to actually put in musical underscores that were antithetical to the production progressing onscreen. Horrible, cheesy, elevator muzak-ish guitar solos would wail as though an 80′s hair metal band was coming to the middle of their hit love ballad during the few poignant moments of the movie. Casual outdoor establishing shots would be sprinkled with upbeat, strange, artificial musical musings that have ZERO correlation to one another. The fact that any money was spent on this arrangement at all and it wasn’t simply composed using freesound.com ten minutes before the first screening is a testament to Hollywood’s oftentimes incompetence.
As mentioned before, the screenplay to this mess is equally frightful, and I assume acts as the cornerstone to the rest of the mess that this film becomes. I can only assume that Eastwood and Damon both saw the potential for a sweeping character piece in this little movie. Of course, that’s me being positive. What probably happened was that Eastwood saw an easy paycheck and after a twenty minute read-through of the script decided that he may even be able to milk some critical acclaim out of this cow with his directing magic. Damon, not even reading the script, but seeing Eastwood’s name attached, signed on blind, and we were given this mess. I think the best word to sum up this movie would have to be “jilted.” Yeah. “Jilted.”
Score/Sound: 32/100
Screenplay/Story: 45/100
Performance/Direction: 48/100
Cinematography: 55/100
Overall: 39/100
Alex Hluch
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