Hereafter

Written by Alex Sukhoy for Film Slate Magazine. Friday, 22 October 2010.

The new Clint Eastwood directed and produced drama “Hereafter,” staring Matt Damon and Cecile De France (“L’auberge espagnole”) focuses on one of life’s most curious thoughts: What happens to us after death?

Written by Peter Morgan (“Frost/Nixon,” “The Queen”), executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Tim Moore, Peter Morgan and Frank Marshall, co-produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Robert Lorenz, and also featuring an international ensemble cast of Thierry Neuvic (“Oscar and the Lady in Pink”), Jay Mohr (“Gary Unmarried”), Richard Kind (“Burn Notice”), Frankie and George McLaren (debut) and Bryce Dallas Howard (“Terminator Salvation”), the story spans the globe.

The film’s compelling opener focuses on a couple vacationing in Thailand. As DeFrance’s Mary LeLay leaves her lover, Neuvic’s Didier, at their hotel room to purchase last minute souvenirs for his kids, the peaceful, sunny resort atmosphere is suddenly obliterated as a tsunami engulfs everything and everyone in its warpath. Mary drowns, if briefly, and witnesses the afterlife. However, she then wakes up, reunites with Didier and returns to Paris where, given what she’s just survived, loses her edge as an investigative journalist. Upon the advice of her lover, who is also her boss, she takes time off to write a book.

On the other side of the planet, in San Francisco, factory worker George, an older and more humble Damon, spends his days in solitude as his brother Billy (Mohr) continues to pressure George to make money on using his gift of communication with those that have passed. George resists, correcting Billy that this is “Not a gift. It’s a curse.” When George’s factory implements cutbacks, and when the brief relationship between him and Melanie (Howard), a woman he meets in his cooking class, collapses, he is faced with the inevitable, “What’s next?”

The third story of the film begins with the interaction of young twin London teenagers, struggling to make the best of their poor living conditions and the alcoholic mother who loves her sons yet who is incapable of taking care of herself, much less her own children. In one scene, the older twin heads out to the pharmacy to purchase his mother’s medication, runs into a group of bullies and, in an effort to escape, gets hit by a truck and dies. Afterward, the younger twin sets out on his own journey to do anything possible to contact his other half.

Throughout the film, the audience follows all these characters and their pursuit of truth and meaning. Taking a bite out of Robert Altman’s playbook, Eastwood weaves the stories into a rich tapestry of dialog and emotion. However, unlike the staccato rhythm of “Gran Torino,” “Hereafter” has the pacing of “Unforgiven,” demanding the viewer’s attention and patience. Given the cerebral and feeling-driven plot, the film, at 129 minutes, while graceful in its production and impeccably acted, positions itself far better for a European audience whose threshold embraces drawn out conflict, than it does for action-hungry Americans.

Eastwood, one of the most masterful and relevant visual storytellers of the time, leaves no detail undone, including writing the score. He nurtures the performances of both established and less seasoned actors and creates a plausible chemistry among all of them. At a time when technology pushes the population to an escalating ADHD permanence, perhaps Mr. Eastwood, a fifty-year industry veteran, knows a little something about human nature and coveys the message in “Hereafter”: the present is the only certainty there is.

DIRECTOR: Clint Eastwood SCREENWRITER: Peter Morgan PRODUCERS: Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Robert Lorenz CAST: Matt Damon, Cecile De France, Thierry Neuvic, Jay Mohr MPAA RATING: PG-13

Alex Sukhoy, author of Chatroom to Bedroom, is founder and manager of Creative Cadence LLC, a content and business development company. Additionally, Alex teaches screenwriting and preproduction at Tri-C.