Starring: Matt Damon, Cecile de France, Frankie McLaren Director: Clint Eastwood Category: IIA (English and French)
In a crucial scene that provides the back story of one of Hereafter's three narrative strands, the psychic turned factory worker George Lonegan (Matt Damon, below left, with Richard Kind) tries to explain to a cooking-class acquaintance the roots of his ability to communicate with the dead. Lonegan is seen moving about in the kitchen, cleaning and cutting celery, as he recounts his pathological and paranormal past - a case of underplaying the extraordinary as mundane.
The same could be said of Clint Eastwood's latest effort. A potentially intriguing issue is dressed up as a hackneyed drama marked by a contrived plot, underdeveloped characters and a meandering sense of melancholy that is rarely emotionally engaging.
Credit is due to Eastwood, though, for venturing into newer storytelling techniques so deep into his directorial career, as Hereafter criss-crosses the Atlantic to unfold the stories of its leading characters. In Paris, well-known television journalist Marie Lelay (Cecile de France) struggles with the trauma of having survived a tsunami in Southeast Asia, her bearings unhinged by her near-death experience and the visions she had of the afterlife; she is persuaded by her producer-lover (Thierry Neuvic) to go on leave and pursue her long-shelved plans to write a book, but instead finds herself increasingly obsessed with looking into the hereafter.
In San Francisco, Lonegan is forced to contend with his supernatural powers - something his brother (who sees them as a money-making opportunity) and the grief-stricken (who look at them as a way to contact deceased loved ones) consider a 'gift' but what he deems a 'curse', as it allows him more knowledge about others than he can cope with.
Finally, London schoolboy Marcus (Frankie McLaren) tries to confront the death of his twin brother, Jason (Frankie's real-life sibling George McLaren), and the break-up of his single-parent family (presided over by a drunken, drug-addicted mother) by going to mediums around the city to seek a meeting with Jason.
