Cécile de France is Marie, a French television journalist (a third of this movie is in French by the way) who barely survives a tsunami, having a near - or slightly beyond near - death experience. Marcus (Frankie McLaren) is a twelve year old British boy whose twin brother Jason (George McLaren) is suddenly killed, leaving him feeling utterly alone. Matt Damon is George, just a guy trying to live a normal life after spending years as a successful psychic, having the gifted curse of connecting to people's passed relatives. Jay Mohr is oddly cast as George's brother and Richard Kind appears as well.
Director Clint Eastwood tries to weave a thought provoking, introspective drama about dealing with death and what happens afterward that is marketed as an action packed paranormal party. If ever there was an example of deceptive marketing, this is it. There is nothing in the trailers to give you any clue that Matt Damon is on screen for less than a third of the movie and there are other characters just as important, and possibly more interesting. Other than the gut wrenching opening, there is also very little action here. This would be forgivable if the viewer is being happily tricked into seeing something much better than what they expected, but alas, this is not so.
Hereafter is more or less a solid film that plays very flat. It's like a straight stone hallway with four walls. You can see the ends quite clearly and there isn't anything in between. It is a nice walk though, and there are some interesting pictures hanging on the walls to look at along the way.
There are sure to be a few people that adore this film, and I could probably concede to a good argument on it's merit, but it was much less than promised and not even as much as it should have been.
*** (3/5 stars)
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