Time: 104 Minutes
Age Rating: M – Offensive language
Cast:
Tom Hanks as Richard Young
Robin Wright as Margaret Young
Paul Bettany as Al Young
Kelly Reilly as Rose Young
Director: Robert Zemeckis

I had heard about Here, it’s the latest movie from Robert Zemeckis, stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, and had some sort of ambitious filmmaking/storytelling choice to it which had me intrigued to check it out despite the mixed to negative reactions. I didn’t love it, but I’m glad I saw it, nonetheless.

Here has an ambitious concept: it takes place in the exact same location with the same fixed camera angle and jumps between different moments of time (spanning from the time of the dinosaurs to present day) with different generations and plotlines. Despite all this, really the main storyline is the stuff involving Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly. The problem is that the movie would cut between that and a whole lot of other random characters and side stories, meaning none of them are that developed. The nonlinear structure can be tedious; all the jumping around in the first act is enough to give a somewhat obnoxious first impression. While I get the intention to jump to different moments to show the passage of time, it might’ve been better if they just focused on its main core of characters. The choice to focus on certain things like a sideplot about the creator of the La-Z Boy are just bizarre. I’d be lying if I said that every part of this movie was interesting, but every so often there would be a decent enough scene that keeps me from checking out completely, despite the strange story progressions. Looking at the film as a whole though, I can’t help but wonder if it would’ve been better as a stage play. While it is definitely a sincere and sentimental movie and has some degree of hope by the end, it is surprisingly bleak and bitter in parts; you really get the feeling that Zemeckis had a lot of thoughts on life that he wanted to get out there.

The acting can be a bit of a mixed bag but the main acting from Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly are pretty good, even if they’ve definitely delivered better performances elsewhere. Even with them, the performances are all over the place, having genuinely subtle and nuanced moments and at other points completely overacting. Bettany probably comes off the best of the bunch since he acts like he’s in a stage play throughout and that kind of works for this movie.

Robert Zemeckis directs this, he always seems to be in search of innovative technology and choices for movies. For what it’s worth he did take a big swing with the central concept of keeping the camera in one place across the whole movie. The production design is decent, especially with showing the changes of time with a lot of attention to detail, the editing is great, and the transitioning of scenes is interesting. The score from Alan Silvestri is also genuinely great. Some of the visuals are interesting and inventive but the cgi and visual effects can be a little off, especially when it comes to the de-aging. Watching Tom Hanks attempt to play an 18 year old was always bizarre and never not weird.

Here is an ambitious and experimental film which is a real mixed bag. Certainly melodramatic, bizarre and with very odd decisions, yet also ambitious, earnest and somewhat admirable.