HEREAFTER

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.

Director Clint Eastwood delves into the afterlife with his latest drama, HEREAFTER. HEREAFTER features three separate storylines, each focused on the effects of death and what lies ahead.

Marie LeLay is the host of a hot-button French television show, who while on assignment, experiences a traumatic, near-death experience in the midst of a typhoon. Marcus and Jason are adolescent British twins, attempting to keep their family together in spite of their drug-addicted mother, each struck by a sudden tragedy. And lastly, there’s George, played by Matt Damon, an American psychic who’s left the profession for a blue collar job, with the hopes of obtaining a normal life.

Each of these characters grapples with their fate and the great beyond.

Always prevalent, but never expressly so, nearly all Clint Eastwood directed films have a certain synchronicity to them. Never so much so than HEREAFTER. Although Marie, Jason and George each share a commonality, we sense that there are greater forces at work.

The events that unfold in writer Peter Morgan’s script could have played out as melodrama or schmaltz, but under Eastwood’s careful touch, HEREAFTER serves as a thoughtful meditation on three lost souls. Marie, Jason and George all experience the pain and hardship of loss, be it through death, personal relationships or their profession, but underneath their anguish lies a sense that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Morgan’s screenplay is well-orchestrated, Eastwood’s touch on-the-mark, and the performances by the three leads are convincing and emotionally rewarding. Cecile de France as Marie, Frankie and George McLaren as Marcus and Jason and Damon as the aforementioned George, all convey their levels of despair appropriately, and each in different ways. Through their performances we explore grief and redemption in humanistic and reflective ways.

Eastwood again serves as his own composer, adding a layer of soulfulness with his simplistic, yet haunting score.

HEREAFTER is a moving and contemplative exploration of what lies ahead when our souls move on.

Grade: B+