Hereafter [HD]

It's a Matter of Life, Death, and Life After Death
Many of us have a terrible tendency to pigeonhole filmmakers into the genres we think they're best suited for. When I first saw the trailer for "Hereafter," I, like much of the moviegoing public, was unpleasantly surprised at the thought of Clint Eastwood having directed a supernatural drama. Given his recent triumphs with films like "Mystic River," "Million Dollar Baby," "Changeling," "Gran Torino," and "Invictus," it just didn't seem like something he would have or should have done. As usual, I was reacting impulsively; "Hereafter" is an incredibly strong film, in large part because Eastwood resisted the temptation to treat it as a thriller. It certainly has mysterious elements, but for the most part, it's a poignant, thought-provoking story of how different people react to traumatic circumstances.

The common thread of the story is death - or, more accurately, what awaits us after we die. Although glimpses of a spiritual void are revealed, neither Eastwood nor writer...

Life, death and transcendence
A tsunami rushes in on an island resort where Marie (Cécile De France) and Didier (Thierry Neuvic) are staying. Both survive, but Marie almost drowns and has a near-death experience, with ghostly light and indistinct figures...George Lonergan (Matt Damon), an apparently psychic American in San Francisco, is pushed into giving a reading for Christos (Richard Kind), a business associate of his brother Billy (Jay Mohr); George resents doing it, claiming that his "gift" is really a curse...in London, twin brothers Marcus and Jason (Frankie and George McLaren) struggle to help their drug-addict mother (Lyndsey Marshal) keep it together enough so that they don't get taken away by the social services - but fate has tragedy in store for them. Three stories, linked by death, gradually coming together, gradually influencing each other.

The bulk of HEREAFTER is about coping; George copes with his unwanted abilities, feeling isolated from his brother and even from the...

Eastwood's Thoughtful Meditation on Life After Death
Eastwood the Director may wind up in history more well-known than Eastwood the Actor, and for the man who played Dirty Harry and The Man With No Name, in addition to brilliant starring roles in his own films such as Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby - that is saying something.

Hereafter is a film with three different plots headed toward a common destination. In one strand Cecile De France plays Marie, a Parisian Journalist who is saved from drowning in a tsunami and finds that she can't extricate her private and professional lives from the experience. Frankie and George McLaren play twin brothers Marcus and Jason. The brothers have a drug-addicted single mother and share the task of shielding her and themselves from the authorities before tragedy strikes. In the final thread Matt Damon plays George Lonegan, the character you know the other characters are moving toward.

George has the ability to talk to the dead through contact with people who have...

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