The Watchmen and San Andreas star leans into a different side of herself to play a hard-hitting new role.
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Title: Hereafter (2010)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Cécile de France | ... | Marie Lelay | |
| Thierry Neuvic | ... | Didier | |
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Cyndi Mayo | ... | Island Hotel Clerk (as Cyndi Mayo Davis) |
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Lisa Griffiths | ... | Stall Owner |
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Jessica Griffiths | ... | Island Girl |
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Ferguson Reid | ... | Rescuer |
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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 | |
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. Written by Warner Bros. Pictures
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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.