HERE
(director/writer: Robert Zemeckis; screenwriters: Eric Roth/based on a graphic novel by Richard McGuire; cinematographer: Don Burgess; editor: Jesse Goldsmith; music: Alan Silvestri; cast: Tom Hanks (Richard), Robin Wright (Margaret), Kelly Reilly (Rose), Paul Bettany (Al), David Fynn (Leo), Michelle Dockery (Pauline Marter), Gwilym Lee (John Harter), Ophelia Lovibond (Stella Beekman), Nicholas Pinnock (Devon Harris), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Helen Harris), Cache Vanderpuye (Justin Harris), Anya Marco-Harris (Raquel), Tony Way (Ted), Jemima Rooper (Virginia), Joel Oulette (Indigenous Man), Dannie McCallum (Indigenous Woman), Keith Bartlett (Benjamin), Daniel Betts (William Franklin), Leslie Zemeckis (Elizabeth Franklin), Zsa Zsa Zemeckis (Vanessa), Lauren McQueen (Elizabeth), Beau Gadsdon (Young Elizabeth), Jonathan Aris (Earl Higgins), Albie Salter (Young Jimmy), Henry Marcus (Jimmy), Lily Aspell (Bethany), Mohammed George (Carriage Driver), Dexter Soll Ansell (Boy in Dress), Delilah O’Riordan (Violin Girl) Stuart Bowman (Businessman); Runtime: 104; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producers: Robert Zemeckis, Bill Block, Derek Hogue, Jack Rapke; Sony/TriStar/Miramax; 2024)
“Disjointed, tiresome and boring episodic experimental film.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
In 1989, Richard McGuire developed a 6-page comic strip that documented what the same space looked like from BC to the distant future. Panels overlapped different events over a span of eons. The idea was of time being framed in every drawing.
Director-writer Robert Zemeckis (“Forest Gump”/”Cast-Away”) bases his disjointed, tiresome and boring episodic experimental film on the 304-page 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire from which he and Eric Roth adapted their screenplay, based on the original comic strip.Zemeckis reunites with his Forrest Gump screenwriter Eric Roth and stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright.
The film is framed through the living room of a house constructed in 1902, in a story that goes back to 1503 at a time the Indigenous people lived there and later when the settlers arrived. It traces the history of the Philadelphia house from when it was built to the present.
In 1907 Pauline (Michelle Dockery) first lived in the house with her aviation-buff husband John (Gwilyn Lee), followed by the ‘reclining chair’ inventor Leo (David Flynn) and his wife Stella (Ophelia Lovibond) in the 1930s. In 1945 – shortly after W.W.II – the two-story house was purchased for $3,400 by Army veteran Al Young (Paul Bettany) and his wife Rose (Kelly Reilly), who raised three children there. Their son, an aspiring artist named Richard (Tom Hanks), marries his high-school sweetheart Margaret (Robin Wright) and raises in the house their daughter (Zsa Zsa Zemeckis), as they move in with Al & Rose for financial reasons.
Years pass as monotony dominates, as its filmed at the same location with a static camera, as the house changes hands again and gets sold for a million dollars. In recent times, we get to see one of the householders die of COVID.
We’re supposed to meditate on our mortality over this nonsense, in which none of the couples are in the least bit interesting.
I just died of boredom from this dull, inert and pointless film made by a filmmaker obsessed with technology, who in his prime made popular films but now is in decline.
It played at the AFI Fest.
REVIEWED ON 11/21/2024 GRADE: C-
dennisschwartzreviews.com