Dir. Clint Eastwood, US, 2010, 129 mins, English and French with subtitles
Cast: Matt Damon, Cecile De France, George and Frankie McLaren
Review by Carol Allen
There is a scene in this film where French television journalist Marie (de France) reveals she is writing a book about the hereafter – what happens after we die – sparked off by her own near death experience. As a result she loses her job as the presenter of a hard hitting news programme in a world which prides itself on rationality, while her publisher is horrified. Such a book, he claims, would have to be written in English and published in America . Maybe this is an indication that director Eastwood and writer Peter Morgan believe that the theme of the film is one which God fearing Middle America is more likely to embrace than Europe . There is however no mention of God as such in the film. It is the story of three people in different parts of the world, all of whose lives are in some way touched and changed by the hereafter of the title.
Marie is on holiday in Indonesia with her producer boyfriend, where she is one of the victims of a tsunami. To all intents and purposes she drowns but is then revived and brought back from the dead. And she cannot forget the vision she experienced of the misty figures waiting to receive her on “the other side.” In San Francisco George (Damon) is a reluctant psychic, who finds himself involuntarily in touch with the spirits of the departed, who are loved and lost to those who seek his help. It’s a “gift” which he sees as a curse, which has ruined any chance he has of a normal life and despite the pleas of his entrepreneurial minded brother (Jay Mohr), he chooses to keep his gift secret and work in a run of the mill blue collar job. Meanwhile in London identical twins Marcus and Jason (George and Frankie McClaren) look after their drug and drink addicted mother (Lyndsey Marshal), until Jason is shockingly killed in a road accident and Marcus is left bereft of his brother, the one who always led the way and made the decisions.
Initially these three stories are told separately, as we establish the detail of the characters’ lives. Marie is so changed by her experience that she can no longer conduct the hard hitting interviews that have been her professional life up to now and feels compelled to investigate the reasons behind her vision of death. George is struggling to create a life and a new relationship with Melanie (Bryce Dallas Howard), the young woman he meets at a cookery course in which he enrols. But when his psychic gift starts to affect that relationship, he too must go in search of answers. As for Marcus, put into foster care when his mother is admitted to a treatment centre, he becomes a sad and disturbed child, stealing money from his foster parents to pay for his search to find out why his brother has disappeared so suddenly from his life and where he has gone.
Eastwood and Morgan tell their story skilfully, moving clearly between the three strands and speeding up the pace as the film moves towards its resolution, when the characters’ paths finally come together in London , while the performances constantly hold our interest. There are moments of comedy, as in the way Marcus and Jason attempt to hide their mother’s problems from the well meaning but to them intrusive social workers or when Marcus attends a spiritualist meeting and his small face graphically registers his contempt at the obvious phoniness of the supposed medium. There is also a good dramatic sequence where Marcus’s determination to not lose the one object he has left of his brother’s protects him from a terrorist attack. Coincidence or other worldly intervention? The scene where Melanie persuades George to reluctantly demonstrate his powers is handled with great delicacy. And Marie’s personal and journalistic quest to uncover the sort of story she’s never had to deal with before is engrossing. There are also good contributions from Mohr as George’s brother, George Costigan and Niamh Cusack as Marcus’s understanding foster parents and an amusing cameo from Derek Jacobi, reading from the works of George’s favourite author Charles Dickens. And whether you believe in the hereafter or think that this life is all there is and when you’re dead that’s it, Eastwood’s film is still a good story well told.
