{"id":416,"date":"2010-10-23T16:43:09","date_gmt":"2010-10-23T23:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayivey.com\/wordpress\/?p=416"},"modified":"2010-10-23T16:43:10","modified_gmt":"2010-10-23T23:43:10","slug":"film-review-hereafter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rayivey.com\/wordpress\/film-review-hereafter\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>

If you\u2019re a moviegoer, \u00a0 and your friends are moviegoers, I promise you this week that one of you is going suggest that you all go see the new film Hereafter<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Hereafter<\/em><\/strong> is the new film from the venerable Clint Eastwood, which of course makes it An Important Movie.\u00a0 Which means when you walk in and plop down your $15, you\u2019re going to expect that it\u2019s a serious treatment of its subject \u2013 that is, Near Death Experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0And I\u2019m not here to tell you not<\/em> to see it.\u00a0 It\u2019s reasonably well told, and full of attractive people.\u00a0 But I do want to warn you that the movie isn\u2019t really about near-death experiences.\u00a0 The movie isn\u2019t the least bit interested<\/em> in near-death experiences.\u00a0 In case that \u00a0matters to you, I\u2019ll save you your $15 right now and tell you what Hereafter<\/em><\/strong> is about:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about Matt Damon really, really<\/em> needing to get laid.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not kidding.\u00a0 Every death in the movie \u2013 from a \u00a0senseless traffic fatality in London to the ghastly carnage brought about by the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami \u2013 simply serves as a mechanism to help Matt Damon finally solve his romance troubles.<\/p>\n

\"Sorry<\/a>
Sorry we had to kill your brother, but how else are we going to get Matt Damon a date?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Matt Damon stars as a glum guy who used to be a successful professional psychic.\u00a0 Sort of like John Edwards, except a) his talent is real, meaning he\u2019s not b) a reprehensible scum-of-the-earth creep.\u00a0 He\u2019s just lonely and sad, as only good-looking movie stars can be.<\/p>\n

His psychic gift became such a burden that he gave it up, and he now plods through a depressing factory job at the S&H Sugar factory in San Francisco.\u00a0 But his gift stubbornly haunts him, and once again ruins his chance at love with a beautiful and available fellow cooking student \u00a0(the always-welcome and puzzlingly underrated Bryce Dallas Howard).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, two other seemingly deeply meaning-filled stories develop elsewhere in the movie.\u00a0 In once, \u00a0a famous French journalist (the arrestingly beautiful C\u00e9cile de France) struggles to come to grips with the near-death experience she had during the tsunami (which is depicted quite impressively).\u00a0 In the other, a young English boy (played by both Charlie and Frankie McClaren) struggles to come to grips with the abrupt death of his twin.<\/p>\n

The movie is never boring, but it\u2019s sloppy.\u00a0\u00a0 Eastwood is famous for working quickly, but this time I think everyone went a bit too<\/em> quickly.\u00a0 There\u2019s a howling mistake during a scene in which Damon is touring the home of Charles Dickens.\u00a0 Damon\u2019s character is a Dickens freak, so it\u2019s fun to watch him whisper the answers to every trivia question about the great writer asked by the unctuous tour guide.\u00a0 Therefore, when the guide makes a stunningly basic mistake about Dickensian lore (the subject of Dickens\u2019 last novel\u00a0 was named Edwin<\/strong> not Edward <\/strong>Drood) it makes absolutely no sense that Damon wouldn\u2019t react.\u00a0 But he doesn\u2019t . . . I\u2019m assuming because the mistake was unintentional, and Mr. Eastwood said \u201cCut!\u00a0 Print!\u201d before any literate person on the set had a chance to raise her hand and say, \u201cAhem, actually <\/em>\u00a0the book was called . . . \u201c\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"I'm<\/a>
I'm firing you AND breaking up with you so you will be sad and lonely and available for Matt!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even worse, Eastwood succumbs to one of the biggest clich\u00e9s in the history of movies \u2013 a chestnut that\u2019s been endlessly lampooned in those lists that circulate on the internet:\u00a0 the old Eiffel Tower Through The Window So You Don\u2019t Forget You\u2019re in Paris shot.\u00a0 Honestly, Clint . . . you didn\u2019t fall off the turnip truck yesterday, and for that matter neither did we, so how could you foist that clunker on us?\u00a0 It\u2019s embarrassing, really.<\/p>\n

But back to the plot!\u00a0 Since this is a Big Important Movie, it\u2019s easy to get seduced into believing that all three stories will eventually come together in some meaningful and illuminating way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And they do<\/em> come together in act three.\u00a0 Huzzah!<\/p>\n

\u00a0And guess what we learn about the hereafter?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nothing.\u00a0 Absolutely nothing.<\/p>\n

That big a fool Clint Eastwood isn\u2019t<\/em>.\u00a0 He knows that what lies beyond the veil of death is one of life\u2019s unknowable mysteries, and that to pretend to know otherwise is an invitation to ridicule.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bit shocking to think that this movie was written by the gifted Peter Morgan, who penned Frost\/Nixon<\/em><\/strong> and The Queen<\/em><\/strong>, which were both actual adult movies, and good ones.<\/p>\n

\"Would<\/a>
Would you sleep with me if I told you that I actually liked Lady in the Water?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So why, then, make this movie?\u00a0 Why dangle this big, tantalizing topic in front of us when you know<\/em> there are no real answers to be had?\u00a0 The more I think about it, the more offensive it is.\u00a0 I hate to say it, but Hereafter<\/em><\/strong> reminds me of the loathsome Awakenings <\/em><\/strong>(1990), which pretended to be about catatonic encephalitis victims and their failure to have long-term benefits from an experimental treatment, but in the end it turned out it was really about Robin Williams getting to have sex with Julie Kavner.\u00a0 Yippee, happy ending!\u00a0 I remember sitting in my seat twenty years ago in slack-jawed disbelief, half-expecting Robin and Julie to roll the once-again unresponsive Robert DeNiro off his gurney so the they could use it to get busy.<\/p>\n

Hereafter<\/em><\/strong> is that<\/em> distasteful, because its message is the following:\u00a0 Don\u2019t feel bad that your twin got creamed by that truck, and don\u2019t think that the deaths of those 200, 000 brown people in the tsunami were in vain!\u00a0 All that happened for a really good reason:\u00a0 Two lonely, attractive white people finally get laid!<\/p>\n

Average Rating: 4.5<\/span> out of 5<\/span> based on 156<\/span> user reviews.<\/span><\/div><\/p>

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