DVD Reviews

Hereafter – Blu-ray Review

By Jeff Swindoll Mar 24, 2011, 14:47 GMT

George (Matt Damon) is a blue-collar American with a special connection to the afterlife dating from his childhood. French journalist Marie (Cécile de France) has a near-death experience that shakes her reality. And when London schoolboy Marcus (Frankie and George McLaren) loses the person closest to him, he desperately needs answers. Each seeking the truth, their lives will intersect, forever changed by what they believe might – or must – ...more

Director Clint Eastwood has crafted a film that deals with the effects of death on the living. It’s a thoughtful film that focuses on two people dealing with death and one who talks to those that have passed over.

In Thailand, Marie Lelay (Cecile de France), a vacationing journalist, is caught in the path of a tsunami and drowns. She’s brought back to life, but her near death experience has her becoming obsessed with what she saw in her short time on the other side much to the detriment of her relationship and career.

In London, twins Marcus and Jason (Frankie and George McLaren) are living with their drug addicted mother (Lyndsey Marshal) and trying to keep from getting taken away from her by social services. Tragedy strikes and one of the twins is killed leaving the remaining one lost, despondent, alone, and living in foster care.

In the United States, George Lonegan (Matt Damon) is a psychic that can communicate with the dead. His brother (Jay Mohr) considers this a financial blessing but George sees his gift as a curse. He is happily working as a dock worker earning little money and isn’t in the psychic business anymore.

His isolated lifestyle changes when he does an impromptu reading for a friend (Richard Kind) of his brothers, tries to enter into a relationship with a cute girl (Bryce Dallas Howard) from his cooking class, and loses his job which prompts him to reconsider his psychic ability as a moneymaking venture. All three will be drawn together by fate.

Life is a fatal proposition and none of us are getting out of it alive. What happens after death is a mystery. Only those that experienced it know what happens and none of them are talking in a verifiable way. When I heard early rumors that Clint Eastwood was taking on a horror film for his next project, I was interested. It’s always interesting when a director steps into a genre that he has not worked in before.

Well, Hereafter didn’t exactly turn out to be the horror movie that anyone was expecting. It turned out to be more of a drama, with supernatural overtones, that saw how three lives were affected by death.

George is gifted with what some might say is a gift, the ability to communicate with those that have passed over, but George realizes that his gift is more of a detriment. He’s hounded by desperate relatives eager to contact loved ones and looked at as a freak by some that know of his talent. We see firsthand how his knowledge can sabotage his life during the course of the film.

We also see how the twin can’t seem to move on after the death of his brother. Perhaps through finally connecting with the twin he can see how his talent might be able to help the living. I got the distinct impression that some of his talk with the boy was his own and not the dead as he is hoping to help the lad get over the loss of his brother.

The most harrowing moments come in the beginning of the film with Marie’s story. The tsunami is horrifying (maybe it is a horror movie after all). The problem might arise is that Eastwood has front-loaded the film. After the chilling beginning the film settles into a leisurely pace that some might read as slow. The film offers no easy answers to what happens after we die and leaves those questions unanswered. I found it a well-made and well-acted film, but one sure to divide in the same way as those who believe in life after death and those who don’t.

Hereafter is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (2.35:1). Special features are in high definition and include the 88 minute extended version of critic Richard Schickel’s documentary The Eastwood Factor.

It was only available in DVD so now you can have it in high def. The film also has 40 minutes of focus points documentaries that you can watch during the film or separately. Disc two is a DVD/digital copy.

Hereafter is one of those film that some will like and others will hate. It starts off strong with some agonizing scenes of destruction and terror, but everything after that never reaches that fever pitch. However, I found it a thoughtful look at how these characters deal with their issues and losses.