Here, 2024.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis.
Starring Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly, Michelle Dockery, Gwilym Lee, Ophelia Lovibond, David Fynn, Leslie Zemeckis, Jonathan Aris, Albie Salter, Lilly Aspell, Lauren McQueen, Billie Gadsdon, Harry Marcus, Ben Wiggins, Joel Oulette, Dannie McCallum, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Mohammed George, Dexter Sol Ansell, Zsa Zsa Zemeckis, Cache Vanderpuye, Anya Marco Harris, Tony Way, Jemima Rooper, Nicholas Pinnock, Keith Bartlett, and Daniel Betts.
SYNOPSIS:
A generational story about families and the special place they inhabit, sharing in love, loss, laughter, and life.
For anyone who thought they had seen all of co-writer/director Robert Zemeckis’s Here from the trailer, there is good news and bad news. Based on a graphic novel by Richard McGuire from a screenplay co-written by Eric Roth, the film is more ambitious than most might have expected, except those familiar with the source material. That also doesn’t mean the material works or comes together.
Always at the forefront of technology and trying to push it further with innovative ideas and concepts, Here doesn’t only use a fixed camera angle to tell a decades-spanning story of multiple generations settling into a suburban Pennsylvania home. No, it takes viewers back to when dinosaurs roamed that land, depicting its transformation over the years resulting from shifting weather conditions. Wonkily woven into the ups and downs of this family are also flashbacks to historical figures such as Benjamin Franklin (who apparently grew up across from this home before it was built), the inventor of the La-Z-Boy recliner (how that got worked into the bigger picture is anyone’s guess), and some pretty insulting bits including a Native American family in the past and a Black family in the modern-day present that seemingly serve no purpose. It’s essentially a white man trying to shoehorn in some diversity without a story worth telling for any of them.
The former could be argued as Robert Zemeckis reminding viewers of who owned the land prior. It feels like it could blossom into something important whenever the film returns to that era, except nothing ever comes of it. They don’t even have names. Somehow, the Black family gets it worse, with the father thoroughly explaining to his young adult son what to do whenever the police pull him over. Considering the film crashes into this scene moments after some corny, sentimental moment with the white family (who, of course, are the main focus here), it is an unbelievably jarring and tone-deaf transition. Honestly, the whole damn movie is tone-deaf.
After a first act that is essentially a flurry of scenes across time, past and present, the narrative somewhat settles into a chronological look at a couple named Al and Rose (played by Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly), moving into the home and starting a family. One of those boys is named Richard and comes to be played by a de-aged Tom Hanks, starting from late-teenage years. This is also around when he meets the love of his life, Margaret (Robin Wright, also de-aged to roughly 17 years old in the early going), observing that romance and the family born from that love. Tom Hanks is one of the all-time greats and Robin Wright is also a reliable veteran, but even they can’t muster up much emotion here. De-aging technology still has a ways to go before it looks convincing (it also doesn’t help the visual effects that most of the movie takes place with bright lighting), but the choice at least makes sense within this concept.
There are unquestionably elements to admire, such as how dramatically a family changes across huge chunks of time, whether it be losing members, sending some after college, or relatable observations such as holiday family gatherings shrinking in size. The filmmakers use nearly every holiday multiple times to cram as many characters as possible into the fixed frame. However, no matter how often that is done, no one here is developed into a believable human being. Since every scene is roughly 30 seconds and interrupted by another boxed frame taking us somewhere else in time, with no rhyme or reason for the editing choices, there is never an opportunity to sit with any of these characters and get to know them.
It’s all gestures at the crazy ups and downs of life, told with increasing levels of syrupy melodrama that becomes overwhelmingly over-the-top and nearly unwatchable in the second half. That’s without even getting into how many times characters say some variation of “how good it is to be here”, self-satisfied with itself for trying something creative without anyone even bothering to look into what’s working and what isn’t. By the end of Here, I wanted to be anywhere else.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at [email protected]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist