On the list of 2024 movies I was eager to see, Here had been ranking near the top.
Not only does director Robert Zemeckis reunite with his team from Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, scripter Eric Roth) — but also, the set-up is something that, as far as I recall, has never been attempted in a major motion picture: The camera stays in the exact same spot right up to the end.
It’s a fascinating idea, but Zemeckis and Roth can’t make it work.
Here appears to be set somewhere in Southeastern Pennsylvania (with our cross-state neighbors Bellefonte and Lock Haven getting Turnpike-related mentions). Fixed in what eventually became a residential neighborhood, the single-shot film keeps shifting rapidly back and forth to prehistoric times, Native Americans and the Colonial era, when a home is put up around the camera; thereafter, we are in the living room as various families move through over a period of about 150 years. In these later decades, the focus is on a World War II vet and wife as they raise a growing family, eventually expanding to three generations. (And there’s at least one more group after that as well.)
Everyone tries hard, especially the production designer — and of course the cast, which also includes Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly and Michelle Dockery. Nonetheless, the film fails for several reasons, most of which can be laid at the feet of Roth and Zemeckis. (This despite the latter’s amazing resume, which includes Romancing the Stone, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Polar Express, the Back to the Future trilogy and the lesser-known but excellent Flight and The Walk from 2012 and 2015, respectively.)
For me, the principal problem was a surprising artificiality in nearly every storyline. Yes, the de-aging technology is flawless; Hanks looks for all the world like he did back in the days of Splash and Big, while Wright recalls Buttercup in her beloved Princess Bride. But beyond that, the CGI looks terribly fake, especially in the early plot-strands.
Worse yet, the family dynamics feel squirmingly trite and superficial; despite the strong cast, we almost never believe in these people or their interactions — and that is exacerbated by a script loaded with hackneyed conflicts and uninspired dialog:
“My God, John, she’s the only daughter we’ve got.”
“Only yesterday I was changing your diapers.”
“She’s got a lot of stuff that’s going on.”
And the oft-used, “Time sure flies, doesn’t it?” — with the catchy response, “Yeah, it sure does.”
On a different note, Zemeckis and team sort of hedge their bets with their innovative, one-spot concept. Rather than starting with the primordial soup and moving forward chronologically, they keep skipping back and forth, while using numerous inset frames (mostly overlaying one of the other timelines). I suppose all of this does help keep the movie interesting for restless modern-day internet scrollers. But it seems to me they didn’t quite have the courage of their convictions in carrying out such an unusual set-up.
And as a final failure, the movie crams in a huge number of issues — wartime PTSD, caring for the aged, early aviation, the invention of the reclining chair, the COVID era, police brutality, the American Revolution, Indian artifacts — without ever tying them all together into a coherent message or worldview. It feels like buckshot, and as so often with that ammunition — not much of it actually hits the bull’s-eye.
Yes, the movie works in spots (though I wish it had given the immensely talented Wright a bit more to do); and by the end, when one character declares, “What an adventure it has been,” one can almost feel this way; but there’s still a sense of, “What was the point?”
Marshalling a lot of obvious talent and effort, Here comes across mostly as a missed opportunity.
Oh, well. For the rest of this year, there’s still Red One this coming weekend — and then on 11/22, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2.
Are we not entertained?
