Here marks the first time stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright and director Robert Zemeckis have reunited since Forrest Gump back in 1994. The movie has a lot of the trappings that its audience is expecting, but ultimately, it is a sad misfire.
Here has some nice visual touches, but the cast is trapped in a story that has the emotional weight and depth of a chocolate commercial, and it’s just as syrupy sweet. It’s also a disjointed mess with barely any cohesion which makes it that much more disappointing.
Based on the graphic novel of the same name, Here centers on a home that inhabits people from different generations and the trials and tribulations they face.
Hanks plays Richard Young, an aspiring artist who lives with his loving, patient mother, Rose (Kelly Reilly), and his bitter, disgruntled military father, Al (Paul Bettany). Wright plays Margaret, Richard’s new girlfriend and soon-to-be wife and mother of their children.
Here focuses on other individuals who live in the house, and the movie is shot entirely in the living room. It’s ‘here’ where all the characters share their lives and have supposedly heartfelt moments, but ultimately, they’re not given enough screen time to make the scenes memorable.
Other plot threads involve an ambitious pilot in the early 20th century; a couple during the time of the American Revolution and even the Stone Age, and dinosaurs play a role somehow. Although, I couldn’t say how.
Zemeckis employs a visual technique of showing the house and then cutting away by introducing a small square to indicate when we go back or forward to another storyline. This technique may hold interest a few times, but it becomes ludicrous and tiresome after a while.
Even though Here was directed and co-written by Zemeckis, working alongside his Gump screenwriter Eric Roth, the movie has a lackluster feel, and the performances are halfhearted at best. There’s definitely a story that could work here if the movie was more confident in its approach to actually invest in these characters and not feel lickety-split and impatient to get to the next set of characters.
Here is well-intentioned. It’s a movie that tries to say a lot about how moments in life become memories, but its presentation is nothing more than artificial, engineered poignancy.
Grade: C-
(Rated PG-13 for thematic material, some suggestive material, brief strong language and smoking.)
