Review of Hereafter (2010) by Holloway — 31 Jan 2011

Somewhere, deep within Peter Morgan's screenplay for Hereafter is a good story about three lonely souls connected only by death. The problem, when you have to resort to a premise of "hey, what would it be like if there really was a genuine psychic out there?" to bind it together, is that a promising, meaningful human drama is reduced to the level of whimsical fantasy, but (thanks to its admittedly well-executed documentary style) with none of the wonder and joy that might otherwise entail.

It's a shame that it falls to such a capricious tale to depict real world events such as the Boxing Day tsunami and, to a lesser extent, the 7/7 London bombings for the first time in mainstream cinema.

On the plus side, this is probably as good a film about a real-life honest-to-goodness psychic as it's possibly to make. One wonders who Eastwood was able to assemble so much talent (himself included) around such patent nonsense.

You'd be better of re-watching Ghost. Its sugary sentimentality all the better to suspend your disbelief.