Hereafter tells the parallel stories of three people affected by death: a French journalist who almost drowns, a young British kid who lost his twin, and an American medium who just wants to live a normal life.
Marie's (Cecile de France) near-death starts her on a journey to understand her experience. A successful journalist before the tragedy, the shock of the experience causes her to lose her concentration at work and she is persuaded to take a forced vacation to recuperate.
A heartbreakingly, vivid picture is painted of the twins, Marcus and Lucas (George and Frankie McLaren), helping their mother cover-up her drug habits to Social Services, an accurate portrayal of a reality that unfortunately happens all too often. However, after Jason's death, Marcus struggles to cope and contacts a number of phony mediums before chancing upon George.
Meanwhile, George (Matt Damon) sees his abilities as a curse and tries live a mundane lifestyle - blue collar work and a cooking class. At the class, he meets a young woman, but his abilities ruin any chance of a relationship between them. Fed up with his brother's constant urging to restart his business as a medium and with the remnants of another could-have-been relationship, he decides to take a vacation.
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Of course, with a set-up like this, there had to be some way for the characters to connect, and it was done masterfully. Sprinkled throughout the plot were little hints, but it remained a mystery until just a couple minutes before it occurred.
While the brushes with death were very powerful, there were some glaring errors that completely threw me out of the movie, like the initial tsunami scene. It seemed a bit strange that people would just stand around for a couple minutes before attempting to run away from the water. Then since I was not invested in the scene any longer, I noticed an error with the special effects where I saw people dropping (and rolling) to the ground before the water hit them. Also, in the reunion between Marie and her lover, he was completely unhurt, squeaky clean, as though he had been safe from the disaster despite their hotel room overlooking the ocean.
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Another scene that was uncomfortable was the budding 'relationship' between George and Melanie. Despite her recent break-up, Melanie seemed as though she really wanted to kiss George, even though he ignored her outstretched hand when they first met. Also, George invited her to his place to make an intimate dinner and start a relationship, but I didn't get any portrayal of desire on his part, only hers - and she seemed really pushy. It was a romantic development that was too-fast, too-soon, not helped at all by George spilling his secret to her. If he really wanted to live a normal life, why would he have told her so soon?
The one thing I didn't understand was the 'connection' George had with the afterlife. The first few times it seemed as though he got an image of the person as he could describe the person down to the color of their hair. However, when he does the reading of Marcus, he couldn't immediately tell that it was a young boy who looked very similar to the boy in front of him. The idea was incongruous and I was left confused as to whether he was just getting impressions or actual visions.
Out of the three stories, I really connected to the twins. It was a fully-fleshed out story without the problems the other two had. Unfortunately, the boys can't read lines with any emotion. The best scenes were those without any speaking. One such was the scene where Marcus followed George around. I also loved the hat scene with Marcus in the subway. However, when it was later explained in the movie as a selfish 'it's mine, not yours' idea sprinkled liberally with doses of 'you've got to stand up for yourself', I felt really let-down.
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There were some great ideas in the movie. The foreshadowing by the posters was fantastic, because I immediately knew what it signified. The trick shot of the mirrors in the stairs without seeing the camera blew my mind. The tiny bit of humor in poking fun at the common perceptions of mediums was marvelously done, although there was an editing error I caught when Marcus was on the you-tube page. After clicking the 'related videos' link, the new video had the exact same description and 'related videos' as the first video.
Overall, I felt as though the movie had some really fantastic moments, but I couldn't really get invested in the entire story. There were just too many errors. I'd give this movie a C-, and that's bumped up because I really enjoyed most of the scenes of the twins.
P.S. This should have been posted yesterday, but I had a really difficult time breaking down the parts I liked and didn't liked into coherent ideas.
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