Film Review: Clint Eastwood, Matt Damon Deliver Poignant ‘Hereafter’

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CHICAGO – Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter” is a dramatic examination of a subject rarely dealt with in American cinema with even an ounce of honest emotion: What happens after we die. Without Shyamalan-esque twists or overwrought melodrama, director Eastwood, writer Peter Morgan, and their incredibly-talented cast have crafted one of the most complex dramas of the year, a piece that has already been misunderstood by the critics that have easily dismissed it but that will eventually be remembered as one of Eastwood’s best films of this period of his remarkable career.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

The best films of Eastwood’s career – “Unforgiven,” “Mystic River,” “Million Dollar Baby,” and, of course, others – have almost entirely centered on a small group of characters working with a subject that the director clearly finds personally important. While “Hereafter” has a global scope, it essentially tells the story of three people and does so with long, uninterrupted scenes of dialogue that center around the question of death that will eventually face us all, but is obviously more personally important to someone entering their eighties. In other words, it plays to Eastwood’s strengths perfectly.

Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Hereafter” in our reviews section.

Peter Morgan’s script tells three simultaneous stories in a very linear fashion. We see a scene from story A, then story B, then story C, and then back to A, back to B, and so on until the final act when the stories pile up on top of each other. Those exhausted by the cross-cutting narratives of films like “Babel” shouldn’t be concerned as Morgan’s structural choice allows us to spend time with each story before gradually moving on to the next one without feeling the chronological whiplash that often comes with the subgenre.

The first story is that of Marie (Cecile De France), a famous French reporter who is introduced on a vacation with her boyfriend. While in a small town buying trinkets, the coastal area is hit with a massive tsunami, a remarkable technical feat to behold and the one time the film seems to display the touch of Executive Producer Steven Spielberg. Marie dies for long enough to see a vision of the other side, something we’re shown as blurry shadows and light but that seems like something more concrete to the character. Marie returns to her life but struggles to maintain normalcy now that she knows there’s more to death than she previously reported.

Continue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full “Hereafter” review.

Hereafter
Photo credit: Warner Brothers Pictures