Review of Hereafter (2010) by Sam F — 17 Jul 2013

I have intended to finish watching this movie yesterday and review, but something came up so I could only watch the first quarter. Now that I have watched the full film, here's what I think about 'Hereafter'.

The entire film is basically about death and the afterlife or the Hereafter. In the beginning, this Clint Eastwood flick centers on a beautiful French woman and her boyfriend on vacation in the tropics, when a tsunami hit the shores. Somehow, the disaster triggered a change in her, creating some sort of connection to the Other Side, or the Hereafter. The film then cuts away to America, centering on a man living alone in his apartment, reluctantly carrying out a quasi-seances session with an acquaintance of his brother, who seeks to communicate with a dead loved one. After that, the story cuts away to another family in London, where a pair of twin brothers are living with their dysfunctional, single and heroin addict mother and trying hard to prevent social services from taking her away. One of the twins then died in an accident while out buying his mother's medicine and trying to fend off a couple of street thugs. The The three separate tales soon intertwine, with the French woman, American man and the remaining twin meeting up by chance at the London Book Fair. The film ends amiably with the three characters finally finding closure and tying loose ends to their lives.

I can't quite understand why this film was not well-received. I find the premise quite interesting and on top of it all, it is a very 'Eastwood' flick. It's sentimental, and it's about sad lives trying to find happiness and settle down. The screenplay works just fine, though at times potentially cliched and sappy. The acting is also pretty good, especially the McLaren brothers who acted as the twins, despite their inexperience in acting. For a supernatural drama film, the visual effects are brilliant. The tsunami sequence in the beginning is pretty mind-blowing. The cinematography used is pretty common in most of Eastwood's newer films, where the colours are usually dark, gloomy, of high constract between light and dark, and consist mostly bluish and greyish hues. Clint Eastwood provided a suitably subtle score to complement his own film, while also using the main theme of the second movement of Rachmaninov's second piano concerto (upon which the tune of the song 'All By Myself' was based) in certain scenes.

Overall, this is a thought-provoking and highly sentimental supernatural drama, which I find rather enjoyable, featuring top-notch visual effects, good acting and an above-average screenplay.