Film File - Hereafter

As the man who dispatched dozens of villains to oblivion in his former guises as 'Dirty Harry' and 'The Man With No Name', it seems fitting that an older Clint Eastwood should now direct a film contemplating the question of what awaits us all after we shrug off this mortal coil. While his Colt six-shooter and Magnum .45 worked a treat as deadly extensions to his spaghetti cowboy and ruthless San Francisco cop personas, this tour into the great unknown of 'the other side' is certainly new territory for one of cinema's most acclaimed personalities. It's not that 'Hereafter' doesn't hold the attention - it does, but it's just not as effective as the anti-hero character he inhabited for so long. 'Hereafter' focuses on three people who are haunted by mortality in different ways. George (Matt Damon) is a blue-collar American with a special connection to the afterlife who tries to disconnect from life in an effort to shut out the voices of the dead. On the other side of the world, Marie (Cécile de France), a French journalist, has a near-death experience that shakes her reality when a massive tsunami tears through a small beach town in Indonesia. And when Marcus (George McLaren and Frankie McLaren), a London schoolboy, loses the person closest to him, he desperately needs answers. While each is on a path seeking the ultimate truth, their lives will intersect and be forever changed by what they believe might exist in the hereafter. The cast also includes Jay Mohr, Bryce Dallas Howard, Marthe Keller and Derek Jacobi. 'Hereafter' explores its three characters' search for answers about their own lives in the face of what lies beyond. “We don't know what's on the other side, but on this side, it's final,†says Eastwood. “We all want to believe that there's something beyond and we're not sure what that might be.†Screenwriter Peter Morgan, of 'The Queen' and 'Frost/Nixon', wrote the screenplay shortly after having lost a friend in an accident - an event that forced him to mull the question everyone considers at some point in their lives. “We can be so close to somebody, know everything about them, share everything with them, and then they're gone and suddenly we know nothing. I wanted to write a story that asks some of those questions,†he says. After tackling inner city crime, Western villains, Japanese combat and lonely Iowa housewives over the course of his long and varied career, Eastwood changes course completely in this contemplation of the unknown. The next world for us humans, according to him, is a place of mellow vibes, white light and some very talkative inhabitants with a great deal to communicate to us. There is also, for spice, elements of a government conspiracy to prevent us discovering too much of what awaits beyond. Pulling the main threads of the story together through the three characters, we witness Damon trying to deny his gift as a conduit to the dead; De France's emotional trauma to survive a tidal wave when so many around her drowned, and a London kid desperate to make contact with his deceased twin. After the early sequence of the tsunami - a masterful and terrifying piece of CGI magic - the film settles into a comfortable and contemplative exploration of the Big Question through the different eyes of the three leads. With his talent to unveil a story and extract a willing empathy from an audience undimmed at 80, it's easy to suggest the question of mortality is a topic he himself is becoming more acquainted with. Either way, 'Hereafter' still holds the attention - though perhaps not as effectively as when he did it with a .45 Magnum.