Hereafter (2010)

This film opens with a harrowing recreation of the Tsunami that devastated Indonesia in 2004. Then for the next hour and forty-five minutes it just circles the drain. What bothered me most though was the bastardization of Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto (second movement) used as a motif for the boy's story. The intro is a note for note copy/plagerism of this famous composition; then an altered Rachmaninov melody wanders around aimlessly until the boy's scene is over, which ultimately ends up nowhere; much like the rest of this film. On second thought, good match Clint!

This is good movie. Great story line and delivery, good acting. Except for the woman playing Matt Damon's cooking class love interest. I didn't bother looking up her name. I hope to never see her again. Her empty personality while ending every sentence in a school girl giggle and whiny voice along with her emaciated face and body were exceptionally disturbing to the flow of the story and resulted in my uncharacteristic desire to see her character die a horrible death for being the whiny pushy person her character was. "Pleeeeaaseee" Oh, please. Anyway, other than this, the movie is truly good. I can never rewatch it simply for her role in it. Be prepared.

Special effects are here for an emotional impact and they work well. This is not a supernatural or fantasy film, it's a drama that deals with grief - something that most people would find boring. The most interesting of the three different stories that connect in the end is the one about the London boy who loses his twin brother. His behavior after his brother's untimely death is exactly what grief looks like. This story could stand on its own. Maybe it would have been more interesting to see that whole process of grieving without Matt Damon's psychic getting involved, though in fact the grieving process has its "supernatural" or simply inexplicable side. The French girl's story after the tsunami - honestly I had no idea what it was about because I watched it without subtitles, but Cécile De France is lovely to look at so it didn't matter to me anyway. Clint Eastwood is not really into special effects, but when he uses them, they are executed perfectly for dramatic purposes and storytelling. They are the best that this movie has to offer.

Wow, This was super good, telling the story of three people in different parts of the world who are touched by death and then search for the truth about what comes next -the hereafter. The opening scene with Marie, a French journalist and the tsunami is just incredibly done, so realistic.Another favourite was with the schoolboys hat in the London tube and figuring out what that meant. Lots to think about with this movie, where do we go when we die? Matt Damon plays George, a blue collar worker who is also able to see into the afterlife and this little "gift" has forced him to live a very lonely life. I'm a big fan of Damon's but for whatever reason I just didn't enjoy him in this role.I liked that this took place in several different countries and with separate story lines and characters converging as they search for their truth. Dec/12