Here, 2024.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis.
Starring Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, and Kelly Reilly.
SYNOPSIS:
I have to file Here under the category “Experimental storytelling techniques in film that don’t quite work.” Based on Richard McGuire’s graphic novel of the same name, the latest from director Robert Zemeckis might have worked better for me if it had focused on the main family at the core of the story, rather than touch on moments from the prehistoric era to the modern age.
Here was not what I thought it would be. My impression from the marketing and advertising around the film was that it would center on multiple generations of a family in the same home, with the camera in a fixed location in the living room, and that Tom Hanks and Robin Wright would play the main characters.
That turned out to be just part of the film, which stretches from the prehistoric era to modern day as we watch the changes in not only a house but that specific patch of ground, even before structures (or humans) existed.
Hanks plays Richard Young and Wright plays Margaret, his teenage girlfriend who eventually becomes his wife and bears their only child, a daughter named Elizabeth (Leslie Zemeckis as an adult, and Lauren McQueen and Beau Gadsdon as the young and teenage versions, respectively).
Richard’s father Al (Paul Bettany) is a World War II veteran who clearly struggles with some PTSD during his long marriage to his wife Rose (Kelly Reilly). Richard and Margaret marry in that house and eventually raise their daughter there, making the space a bit crowded until Al and Rose move to Florida for a while.
Interspersed with their story are moments from the history of that place, from multiple Tyrannosauruses Rex stomping around to a Native American couple falling in love and having a child to other couples who lived there in the early 20th century. The large house across the street was once occupied by William Franklin, Benjamin’s son, so we see moments from the late 1700s too, before the house was built.
I haven’t read the graphic novel by Richard McGuire on which the film is based, but I imagine that the storytelling technique used here works better in print than onscreen. This movie feels fractured as a result of all the jumping around through time, and I found myself wanting the story to focus more on Richard and Margaret Young, given all the ups and downs of their relationship. The other couples’ stories were mere curiosities by comparison.
I will say, however, that I was able to buy into the de-aging effects used with Hanks, Wright, Bettany, and Reilly, so the actors could play their characters as young adults all the way through their elderly years. Yes, there was a bit of an uncanny valley effect, but I don’t know how much of that is attributable to the fact that I’m 55 years old and have watched both of them age over time, especially Hanks. I remember watching Bosom Buddies as a kid, so there’s a part of my brain that says, “Yeah, that can’t really be a young Hanks in that shot.”
I suppose the true test of this technology is to use it with an actor who’s relatively unknown and then only reveal that the effect was used well after the movie’s release. Yes, I doubt anyone will want to sink money into that kind of effects work with an unknown actor, but it’s the only way for me to really gauge if the technology indeed works as intended.
This Blu-ray of Here comes with a code for a digital copy and a pair of extras on the disc: a 20-minute making-of and deleted scenes that run about 8.5 minutes total. The excised footage can be filed under “Yeah, I can see why they cut that” except the last bit, titled “The Flood,” which I assume was originally meant to conclude the film as we see what that piece of land might look like after climate change has done its damage. I can see why Zemeckis wanted to end the movie on the two main characters instead.
The making-of, called How We Got Here, focuses heavily on the tech involved in the production, with director Robert Zemeckis and the main cast and crew members talking about the film. It does its job, but it’s a shame that McGuire’s source material doesn’t get more time allotted to it.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
