Review of Hereafter (2010) by Corey B — 27 Sep 2011

Hereafter is a sweet, sensitive movie about the afterlife that feels like a gentle breeze. It's not out to alter your opinion on life after death, it just wants to tell you three simple stories about people dealing with it.

Matt Damon's story is easily the most interesting. As a psychic with the ability to talk to the dead Damon's performance is wonderful. He has the unenviable task of finding a difficult emotional core for his character. Here, he is a psychic who doesn't want to help others. His character could come across as a selfish, unsympathetic jerk, but Damon plays tortured well, and the best scenes in the movie involve Bryce Dallas Howard as a woman who kind of falls for him.

Less effective is the Cecile De France storyline which starts out with an incredibly effective scene where she nearly dies in the 2006 tsunami. This scene is one of Eastwood's best, and unfortunately sets the bar too high for both the movie that follows and also Cecile De France's story, which ends up being a rather dull story about not being taken seriously.

The twin storyline is a little more interesting, but still a little dull. The boy does a fine job, but there's an awful lot of wandering and looking, and at times the adult characters seem to be more dynamic and interesting. I particularly liked a scene where the child services officer and the foster father carry another twin bed into the bedroom because he can't sleep without feeling like his brother is beside him.

The biggest problem is that all the storylines come together in a whimper rather than a bang. While this would be fine if they were emotionally rewarding, only the little boy's story has a deep resolution.

Hereafter is always watchable, and at times it pops to life, but it's also too simple, and emotionally one note.