peter A cross

There is a kind of unspoken daddy/son bro-mance growing between Clint Eastwood and Matt Damon, after their successful deflowering in Invictus (2009) they have rekindled their partnership in the new movie Hereafter. Damon has said that he would read the phone book if Eastwood asked him to, perhaps he and Clint could finally get that much promised but long ignored movie version of The Front Runner off the page and onto film, but that might just be my particular fantasy. However let’s get back to Hereafter.

The plot:   Somewhere in Thailand at a resort, French television journalist Marie (Cecile de France) is shopping for presents for her producer boyfriend’s children when there is an earthquake and she is gathered up by the Tsunami that follows and she is left for dead -she survives. Across the world in San Francisco, retired psychic George (Matt Damon) is forced by his brother Billy (Jay Mohr) to perform one more reading in the craft that he considers a curse not a gift. In England two teenage twin boys Marcus and Jason (George and Frankie McLaren) try to look after their drug addict mother until one of them, Jason, is hit and killed by a truck as he tries to escape the neighbourhood ‘bovver boys’. What follows links these three lives together, providing each of the protagonists with a chance to move on with their lives.

It sounds pretty Mills and Boon on the page but the genius of Eastwood weaves the threads of the three story lines together until the final scene. This is a slow movie don’t go expecting some psychic version of Inception.

Eastwood has become one of those directors that will not be rushed, he is allowed to make the movie he wants to make and tell the story in the time he wants to tell it. He will not be hurried by audience or studio. Sometimes it works brilliantly – Gran Torino – sometimes it misses – Invictus.

Writer Peter Morgan (The Queen, The Last King of Scotland) writes ordinary people with simplicity and economy of dialogue and allows the actors and the director to flesh out their characters. His work seems to fit neatly in to Eastwood’s style, to let the natural action of the scene play out rather than embellish it with tricks.

Unusually for an Eastwood film there is a flash of the modern with a well timed and judicious use CGI. It is used only for as long as necessary and not a moment longer. Spielberg is one of the executive producers so you know the CGI is going to be top notch.

The film will not please everyone; it could be trimmed by twenty minutes and not lose the emotional payoff at the end. However once you relax and let the story surround you, by the end you are, or at least I was, shocked at how much emotional investment I had made in these characters and their story.

If Hereafter is a sign of things to come from this eighty year old director then the next few years will be well worth hanging around for.