By Charles Kirkland Jr.
A generational story about families and the special place they inhabit, sharing in love, loss, laughter, and
life in Here.
Richard and Margaret are just one of many couples who have lived in their home. There have been many families who have resided in this location, each one of them over centuries has experienced love, joy, sadness, and grief and we get to witness it all.
Written by Eric Roth and Robert Zemeckis based on the graphic novel by Richard McGuire, Here stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, and Kelly Reilly. Robert Zemeckis directs the film. In 1995, the world fell in love with the movie Forest Gump. In addition to box office success, Gump won 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor for Tom Hanks, and Best Director for Robert Zemeckis. Almost thirty years later, Here marks the first reunification of the stars Tom Hanks (Forrest) and Robin Wright (Jenny) and the director Zemeckis in one film together since that tender and special romantic drama.
Even though Eric Roth served as the co-writer for Forrest Gump and the stars and director have all reunited, Here is nothing like its predecessor. This experimental film focuses more on a plot of land than a particular couple. The camera never moves through the whole film. It stares in one direction and shows the changes in the world from that singular perspective. We see dinosaurs, Native Americans, colonial times, and other times but the camera, and its focus, never changes.
While Richard and Margaret played by Hanks and Wright are the couple that have the most screen time, there are five other couples whose lives are witnessed through the lens of the camera. Each couple’s story is shown through short vignettes that randomly appear on the screen. The random nature of the vignettes makes it incredibly difficult to keep up with the story of each couple and makes it impossible to buy into the story on an emotional level. Even when the vignettes start to lengthen and focus more on one couple (which happens forty minutes into the film), the film has divested so much in communication to its viewers that it is almost impossible to reclaim their interest in the central story of the film. Because of the lack of plot development, each short story feels trivial and unnecessary.
The most egregious error is the tokenism that occurs in the film. There are two couples included in the film, one Native American and the other African-American. It is truly unclear what these couples add to the story of the movie. The Native American couple speaks in their native tongue which is untranslated and a mystery to viewers. Surely, their thoughts can be interpreted through their actions but it would be more powerful if the audience was given the exact words that were being shared between the two of them which might have fostered an emotional connection to the couple. Somehow, emotional connection did not seem important to the Zemeckis.
Falling in the realm of egregious error, there is a scene where the African-American couple engages in “the talk” with their son. “The talk” is a sad but important reality in African-American culture where a child is given instructions on how to behave when they are stopped by police on a traffic stop. This highly important, distinctly cultural rite of passage feels trivialized when it is surrounded by other menial pursuits such as dancing the tango or finding a child’s lost blue ribbon. This moment is out of place and not given the respect and solemnity of which it is worthy.
Rated PG-13 for thematic material, some suggestive material, brief strong language, and smoking, Here is a sad attempt at sentimentality and relies too much on goodwill and pedigree from a movie that was beloved over three decades ago. Forrest Gump was a fantastic movie that touched the hearts of most who watched it. Unfortunately, you can’t get there from Here.
Here can be seen on limited release in theaters on November 1, 2024.
Grade: D