Movies 120: Hereafter

Storyline: A drama centered on three people who are haunted by mortality in different ways. George (Damon) is a blue-collar American who has a special connection to the afterlife. On the other side of the world, Marie (de France), a French journalist, has a near-death experience that shakes her reality. And when Marcus (Frankie/George McLaren), a London schoolboy, loses the person closest to him, he desperately needs answers. Each on a path in search of the truth, their lives will intersect, forever changed by what they believe might-or must-exist in the hereafter.

I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting when I went in. I was a little reluctant to know. Thinking, ghost story, perhaps. I knew Damon's character was a psychic who thought his gift was a curse. Somehow, I had it all backwards. As if the beginning would be the end.

And what an amazing beginning. The tragic suspenseful scene of the tsunami takes you there, in moments that just pulse through you. The event has you at the edge of your seat. It seems endless at times yet beautiful too. This is where we get first glimpse of the afterlife through De France's character Marie.

Thus, the movie moves rather slow after that. Granted, the movie does have a European feel to it. Of course, we have a beautiful European cast. There is up to 45 minutes of the movie in French with subtitles. Just don't let that put you off. I did enjoy the performance of Cecile De France. Her character was strong and very beautiful. Only, after what the boyfriend/co-worker(Dider played by Theirry Neuvic) went through, looking for her in this catastrophic event, you would have thought he would have adored her more. And maybe he did. He just didn't have faith nor a believer like Marie.

There is a second story involved with the twin school boys who's mother is an addict. They are 12 minutes apart and identical. Only Marcus has always depended on Jason. All they want is a normal life with a normal mother. Suddenly, tragedy happens out of no where and Marcus is left alone, with questions about what happened to his twin brother. He soon moves into a foster home where he's good, but gets a sudden hankering to find out if psychics can help. He meets up with various ones, but he knows in the end they aren't real. Yet, when he finds George's website that George doesn't even use...Marcus finds hope.

Meanwhile, its never easy falling in love when you are a psychic, especially when one touch gives George a jolt of someone's past. But things are looking up for him when he meets Bryce Dallas Howard's Melanie at a cooking class. They get to know each other in a rather offbeat way. But once he learns her truth, it changes everything. Clint Eastwood has certainly shown over the last decade or so that he does know how to create characters. He has a way of showing the lonely side of being human. Eating alone. Living alone. And he certainly shows the real life of a psychic. Damon was wonderful as George.

Yes, the movie is slow. But it isn't so much about a plot or suspense, yet about faith and fate. Those who believe and those who don't. And the essence of life and how we've lived it. I so adore Frankie and George McLaren in the film as the twins.

The movie shows we need our passions to exist. As one movie critic from Houston put it, "By the end of the film, you realize that the most wonderful and amazing events in life cannot necessarily be proved - but with enough faith and through fate - everything lines up exactly as it should."

It might not be a movie for everyone, but it will make you think. Clint Eastwood gives us a look into the peace and mystery that awaits us on the other side... but also the joy and beauty of what is right in front of us.