Hereafter (2010)

A drama centered on three people - a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy - who are touched by death in different ways.

Director:

Clint Eastwood

Writer:

Peter Morgan

Stars:

Matt Damon, Cécile de France, Bryce Dallas Howard

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 4 wins & 13 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Cécile de France	...	Marie Lelay
Thierry Neuvic	...	Didier
Cyndi Mayo	...	Island Hotel Clerk (as Cyndi Mayo Davis)
Lisa Griffiths	...	Stall Owner
Jessica Griffiths	...	Island Girl
Ferguson Reid	...	Rescuer
Derek Sakakura	...	Rescuer
Jay Mohr	...	Billy
Richard Kind	...	Christos
Matt Damon	...	George Lonegan
Charlie Creed-Miles	...	Photographer
Frankie McLaren	...	Marcus / Jason
George McLaren	...	Marcus / Jason
Lyndsey Marshal	...	Jackie
Rebekah Staton	...	Social Worker

Storyline

A drama centered on three people who are haunted by mortality in different ways. George (Matt Damon) is a blue-collar American who has a special connection to the afterlife. On the other side of the world, Marie (Cécile de France), a French journalist, has a near-death experience that shakes her reality. And when Marcus (identical twins Frankie McLaren and 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.

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Plot Keywords:

near death experience | car | airplane | italian food | crying | 

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Taglines:

Touched by death. Changed by life.

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Genres:

Drama | Fantasy | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements including disturbing disaster and accident images, and for brief strong language

Details

Official Sites:

Warner Bros. [Germany] Warner Bros. [France]

Country:

USA

Language:

English French

Release Date:

22 October 2010 (USA)

Also Known As:

Más allá de la vida

Filming Locations:

Maui, Hawaii, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$50,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$220,322, 17 October 2010, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$32,746,941

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$105,197,635

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros., Malpaso Productions, The Kennedy/Marshall Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

129 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

One of the few movies executively produced by Steven Spielberg that has neither an Amblin Entertainment nor DreamWorks Pictures symbol in the ads representing his involvement. (The Amblin logo does appear at the end of the movie.)

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Goofs

The Tube station where Markus narrowly misses a terrorist bombing is incorrectly identified as Charing Cross Station. None of the July 7 bombings took place anywhere near Charing Cross. The external shot of the station was taken of the Liverpool Street station where one of the bombs actually did explode on a train which had just left the station. The sign on the exterior was digitally altered to Charing Cross.

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Quotes

Billy: Did you do the reading?
George Lonegan: Look, you still don't get it, do you? You think just 'cause I can make money doing this... just because I can, that I should do it.
Billy: [shrugs] Yeah, yeah I do. I also think you have a duty to do it, because you have a gift.
George Lonegan: It's not a gift, Billy, it's a curse.

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Crazy Credits

The mid 80s-late 90's Warner Bros. shield is used and is in black and white at the beginning of the movie, and at the end of the credits, the same Warner Bros. Shield is used alongside the Amblin logo, also in black-and-white.

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Connections

Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Embarrassing Movies by Critically Acclaimed Directors (2014)

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Soundtracks

Piano Concerto #2
(1900-01)
Written by Sergei Rachmaninoff

User Reviews

Slow Pace- with unfulfilling and ambiguous story

The pacing of this film did not bother me. Of course, I am over 50, so I can actually sit still through a slower paced storyline that includes a number of different characters, without something blowing up, or someone getting undressed to keep my attention.

What did bother me, perhaps comes from a unique view from others reviewing the film. As one who has experienced an NDE, I was disappointed with both the flimsy, and undeveloped view of the female lead's experience, and the ambiguous way in which her story unfolded.

On one hand, we have a character whose NDE was so life-altering, as to divert her from her primary job as a political reporter, into someone who writes a book extolling the difficulty in revealing the truth in the modern media world about the validity of the NDE experience. The dust jacket on her book, as well as casual references to her research, talk about all of the expert testimony that support the overwhelming facts about NDE experiences, and the correlation between science and the afterlife. And then…the movie tells us nothing.

The script (or perhaps what was left after Eastwood edited the script) simply glosses over anything substantial in the way of research, except to talk about a Nobel laureate who was ridiculed after revealing his research. One line...out of over two and a half hours of script.

The question to me, is why start the conversation, if you aren't going to offer even a small slice of the answers? The research is voluminous. Those of us who have experienced an NDE know that it is far more than a chemical reaction to the body starting to shut down. Much more.

But, all we are left with in this movie, is a lead character who doesn't want to acknowledge his gift, even in the face of those around him who believe in a "hereafter," more than he does.

Anyone who has experienced an NDE will find this movie sadly unfulfilling. But perhaps, it will bring many more of us to admit to what happened, and start a much more meaningful dialogue about the facts.

As a few of the younger reviewers mentioned, a vast majority of the audience was over 50. No doubt many of those there were looking for answers about the "aferlife," for one reason or another.

It would have been a great chance to tell the world something substantial. But in the end the movie was a nice idea, with slow execution...and painfully unfulfilling.