Wait, Clint Eastwood Directed Hereafter?

It’s Halloween time and the theatres are aghast with spooky films which confronts us with the fear of our own mortality. But amongst these pics, there’s an unlikely contender that’s exploring the same subject matter in a different way. The drama Hereafter explores the issue of life after death through three disparate characters who question their mortality and eventually cross paths to find their answers.

While Matt Damon leads Hereafter through thought-provoking questions of its complex subject matter, it’s receiving a critically mixed bag of reviews. And one of the biggest surprises:

The director is Clint Eastwood.

We expect emotionally charged dramas from Eastwood, like the recent Invictus or Changeling, but Hereafter, a Halloween-released supernatural drama, almost raises the question:

Wait, Clint Eastwood directed this?

Eastwood likes to explore haunted characters in provocative landscapes, but this doesn’t feel like the typical Eastwood fodder. And unfortunately, that disconnect might be taking its toll. Hereafter is Eastwood’s lowest reviewed movie since Blood Work (2002).

A closer look reveals that despite a low box office showing this weekend of $12 million, this $50 million budgeted pic might actually make some bank in the long term. Both Invictus and Changeling, two other Eastwood directed (non-Eastwood acted) movies, with comparable $50 mil budgets, scored under $10 million in their opening weekends and went on to make over $110 million worldwide.

And heck, compared to other 2010 dramas, like Secretariat, The Kids Are All Right, and Extraordinary Measures, none of which went over $40 mil at the Box Office, Eastwood’s latest opus could enjoy a slow boil that delivers it to the head of the table.

There’s no denying the subject matter of death is a touchy one. But if well handled, audiences might be interested to see how Eastwood explores it. However this movie still falls short of classic Eastwood standards. People are going to see it, but only half leave satisfied. What’s the story here?

Well, the problem here is in the story-telling, specifically how it fails to deliver three necessary promises.

1. Who’s the movie about?

The poster shows Matt Damon surrounded by haunting blue, swirling light and behind him a beautiful woman with curly hair. We know from the trailer that Matt Damon can see dead people. So it must be a story about his struggle with his gift. Right? Well, that’s just one of three storylines the movie focuses on. This is one of those stories where three different characters all deal with the same thematic issue and then meet in the end and all find closure. And that’s not what we’re expecting. Which unfortunately leaves some of us disappointed.

2. What's the movie about?

It’s one of the most important rules for the theme. When dealing with that encompassing discussion behind the backdrop of the drama, the filmmakers must explore both sides of the argument. Otherwise the story can fall into a didacticism that threatens to make the story preachy and overly simplistic in the face of life’s greatest challenges.

A Few Good Men explores the complexity of right and wrong, when even after Tom Cruise proves these two soldiers were just following orders, they are found guilty because they didn’t protect the weak and do the right thing. The Hurt Locker shows both the fulfillments and failures that war has on our soldiers.

Now those who firmly believe in an afterlife and seek no meandering viewpoints might be pleased with Hereafter. There's an afterlife. You go there when you die. And Damon can communicate with the dead.

But for the rest of the audience, the one-sided way in which Hereafter handles the topic is disappointing. Mortality is anything but a simple issue. Even those whom believe in an afterlife will differ in their interpretations. But Eastwood and Morgan (screenwriter of The Last King of Scotland and The Queen), deliver a black and white approach and never entertain the issue from any other viewpoint.

We almost get frustrated at the characters for not quickly finding peace in such an obviously presented situation. Other times it seems silly how people in the afterlife are always so apologetic, selfless and aware. Hereafter lacks the poise and dimension that this subject matter deserved.

3. Where's the movie going?

The story opens with a French journalist, played by Cecile De France, who searches for answers after her near-death experience during the horrific Southeast Asian tsunami. Then an English boy, Marcus, loses his twin brother in a car accident and struggles to find peace at being alone. Finally we see Matt Damon, playing George, a psychic who can see dead people, but doesn’t want to practice his gift anymore. Three characters searching for clarity in the issue of death.

Now there’s a point in the beginning of any movie where you say to yourself, I know where this movie is going. But in Hereafter, the story coasts along without that direction because of one simple problem. How can such an abstract element as clarity over mortality be dramatized? It isn’t, and by the end of the film, two of the three storylines falls short of satisfying conclusions, especially Damon’s.

All in all, nobody can question Eastwood’s ability to craft moving moments, get amazing performances out of his actors, and craft very worthy films deserving of attention. But in Hereafter, it seems he failed to consider just how intricate his audiences view this touchy subject matter. Let’s hope in Eastwood delivers some more complexity in his next film, Hoover, a biopic with a cross-dressing Dicaprio as the CIA’s J Edgar Hoover.