Movie Review: Hereafter

If you need another reason to keep on this side of the earthly pale, the new movie about life after death, “Hereafter” will add an item to your list of reasons to not kick the bucket just yet. If the sweet by and by is anything like director Clint Eastwood’s bloated, dull, and depressing movie, it’s just too boring to die. Might as well see what tomorrow brings in the land of the living.

In theory, “Hereafter” bites off a big, hearty chunk of spiritual questioning. The film starts strong, with French journalist Marie (Cecil De France) taking a peaceful stroll down a Southeast Asian street, shopping for souvenirs. She freezes in horror as the waters of the 2004 tsunami crash toward her. The sequence of her near death is gripping and powerfully filmed. Fished from the devastation, she has miraculously survived but has seen the blue fuzzy light and out-of-focus familiar faces of a near death experience. Is it something real or a product of oxygen-deprived hallucinations? Meanwhile, in America, George (Matt Damon) has given up his work as a psychic. He can talk to dead people, but the desperation of the living to talk to their loved ones just one more time wears on him. Plus, it’s hard to get dates when you’re all about death. Over in London, twin boys (Frankie and George McLaren) of a single, drug addicted mother are separated by a tragic, deadly accident. Marcus misses Jason terribly, and is desperate to connect with him.

These three people will be drawn together, but not until more than two dull hours have gone by and you’re almost ready for the sweet embrace of death to release you from watching the movie. I’m pretty sure eternity itself is shorter than this film.

Death can be an interesting subject matter, but the script only skims the surface. “Is there something after life?” it asks, but never explores beyond the question. Deftly dismissing all religious belief in a smug cinematic wave of the hand, the film goes on to chide science for ignoring the evidence of near death experiences. It sees no inconsistency in asking about spirit while rejecting anything spiritual or poking around with the supernatural while ignoring that billions already believe there is a supernatural force, a God. Most of us already consider death a profound and mysterious passage, even within the understanding of our various religious traditions, so we’re already ahead of the film.

I had many questions arise during the movie: Why would a deceased person choose to come back from whatever exists after and talk to her husband? What benefit is it to talk to your departed child just one last time? Are there things to be said after death that are different than while someone was alive? An incredible amount of human pathos, loss, redemption, and love is packed into these questions, but the film trips on, obliviously arguing that there just might be something to this tunnel-of-bright-light thing. Once you concede, “Yes. I think there is something to near death experiences. Tell me more,” it shrugs and says “Yeah. I got nuthin.”

If you’re blowing up aircraft carriers, chasing vampires through the woods, or watching Robert Downy Jr. fly around in an iron suit, the audience doesn’t necessarily expect you to have anything horribly profound to say. We like the pretty girls and the big kabooms. But if you’re making a movie about death and titling it “Hereafter,” we expect a bit of insight. Sadly, we exit this film depressed and two hours closer to our own demise with nothing to show for the time. 

If I can find him in heaven, I’m having a word with this Eastwood guy.

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