Clint Eastwood decided to take a peak at what his vision of the other side looks like in Hereafter. This is probably the most speculated upon topic that mankind has, we all have our own ideas. At one time this was the purview of organized religion, but over the past century they've lost their monopoly.
Hereafter concerns three people, American psychic Matt Damon, French journalist Cecile De France, and British adolescent Frank/George McLaren who are twins and play the same role. One is looking for a sign from the afterlife, one gets one, and the third does not want to be getting any more of them.
It's kind of unusual for a film to start with a spectacular display of technical effects, but Hereafter features that as De France is caught in a tsunami where she was probably technically dead and then rescued. During that time she experiences some strange things and she's changed forever by it. She drops everything else to research into the topic.
Matt Damon is a good place to start, but this man wants nothing, but obscurity. He is a psychic who at one time made a living at it, but the demands and pressures put on him for his gift became unbearable. When he breaks down and gives an interview to someone at his brother's request, it all starts to come back so he flees to London, the home and workplace of Charles Dickens who as an author Damon thinks is tops. I could really relate to Damon's character, there are times that pressures make one long for obscurity, Damon initially finds it as a factory worker, but that blows up on him as the film shows.
Frank/George McLaren is a British kid, twins in fact and one of them is abruptly killed. As twins they were by nature close and it's like half of yourself no longer exists. He just wants some reassurance that his other half is fine somewhere on some plane of existence. I know that feeling too, a lot of it is losing someone and never having had a chance to say goodbye to them.
Though Hereafter got an Oscar for visual effects both for the tsunami and later for a London Subway bombing, Clint Eastwood gets some good performances out of his human cast members as well. The McLaren twins are quite touching in fact and come off as real kids.
Some might find Hereafter unsettling, but I liked it and go out and raid your Redbox to find it.
