Hereafter (2010)

Everyone knows the name Clint Eastwood. It’s impossible not to – the guy’s been in God knows how many films and directed God knows how many more. Apparently though, this is the first film of his on either side of the camera that I’ve actually seen. I’m not proud of that – it shows a gaping hole in my film knowledge – but most of them aren’t really my thing so it’s a hole not likely to improve all that much. I might give some of the more recent ones a go – Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino, Changling – ones like that.

Anyway, as you can imagine, I didn’t pick this film because of its director. Or because of its cast. Yes Matt Damon’s in it and he’s very good and everything but I have no special love for the guy. He’s the cause of me having to sit through The Bourne Identity and I harbour a little resentment for that (no, I didn’t like it).

The only reason I felt drawn to this film was because I remember the trailer being quite promising. A guy that can genuinely speak to the dead – it could be ok if it’s done well (OK maybe the names Eastwood and Damon helped me trust it a bit), but I never imagined it would contain any great depth or complexity. So I was quite surprised when the film opens to a scene containing some random couple speaking French. That’s good though, not being scared to include a few subtitles. It gives the audience more credit than a lot of other films do.

Unfortunately, for all its French subtitles, Hereafter not only lacks depth, it also lacks any real complexity. It’s three films in one, following three people and their experiences with death and the deceased. While initially promising, I lost interest in all three stories (and the people in them) reasonably quickly, and so gained very little satisfaction from their progress and subsequent acceptance of their various trials and troubles.

It would have done well to tug at the heartstrings a little more. Not quite sure whether to make a moving film about loss and grief, or a Hollywood blockbuster with bombs and magic powers, Eastwood seems to have created something that’s half way in-between. And so is neither. It manages to pack in two of the major disasters of the last 10 years in a dramatic showy way that shouts “Blockbuster” very loudly in our ears, but it also tries to slow things down to showing us the subtlety of the loyalty of two brothers to their drug-addicted mother.

There’s also a half-heated attempt at a romance. Just to complete things.

There wasn't really any conclusion either thinking about it. The three stories converged as they do tend to do but we didn’t get all that much closure to the stories. Not that I noticed anyway – perhaps I’d stopped concentrating by that point. I did try though.

So no, I didn’t particularly enjoy this and no, I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone. Even as a lazy Sunday night film it failed to keep me entertained.  Perhaps I’ll still give Eastwood’s other films a go but mostly because it seems blasphemous not to.  At the moment though, as far as I’m concerned, the best thing about Clint Eastwood is the song by Gorrilaz.