Here (Aquí)

I was excited to see this film at the AFI film festival last night. But after watching it, I was disappointed with the film. Robert Zemeckis of "Back to the Future" fame loves using technology to illustrate his films. In this one, he uses different picture-in-picture panel inserts to show what was happening at various times in the same place (i.e. "Here" - someplace in New England or Pennsylvania). He also uses de-aging techniques to turn Tom Hanks and Robin Wright into teenagers (done much better than Scorsese's "The Irishman"). However, these pluses don't make up for a mediocre and predictable story that concentrates on Tom Hanks (and Robin Wright's) initially exuberant youth that is wrecked by the realities of adult life. Been there, done that. Parallel stories of Benjamin Franklin's son, a Native American, an early aviator, the alleged inventor of Laz-e-boy, and a black family who all occupied the same space at different times eventually serve more as distractions rather than enhancements. The gimmicky use of the panels eventually becomes tiresome as well as the use of AI to create ancient times and animals. The main actors (Hanks, Wright, Bettany, and Reilly) are all excellent but I only wish they were given a better screenplay to work with.

The most intriguing part of this movie, to me, was the clever use of technology to jump back and forth in time - but not space - to show what had happened at one unremarkable place in the area now occupied by New England from the age of the dinosaurs to today. Transitions are often effected by adding picture-in-picture windows on top of the one central video and then jumping to a different time in some of the smaller windows before the whole screen changes to that era as well. I'll confess that that gimmick did grow old after a while, but I still found it at least sometimes clever.

There were, however, problems for me, which some of the previous fourteen reviewers have already pointed out.

The main story - that of the Young family, through its three generations - is not particularly interesting. But the other, minor stories, that are woven in and out of it are really of no interest at all. Why should we care about one of Ben Franklin's sons? Or the Indian/Native American young woman and her young lover? Or even the man who invents the Lazy Boy recliner? Nothing is done to link those stories to the main one, and they are of no interest by themselves.

That was particularly true of the short time we spent with a young African-American couple who live in the house for some unspecified time in our modern era. (They have COVID masks.) All we see of them, really, is that the woman gets along well with her Latina housekeeper. And that the father at one point gives his son what we white folk are told is 'the talk," in which the father tells the son how to behave when stopped by a white police officer so that he doesn't get killed by same. That's pretty much of a cliché, and none of my Black friends ever had such a talk with their parents.

Nothing really holds these various stories together. Since they are not of themselves interesting, and don't reinforce the main one, that's a problem.

I wasn't bored. I could even see watching this movie again on tv, where I could pause it for a break now and then. But once in the theater, while not boring, was enough for me.

Usually I do not write reviews but I must admit that this movie left an emotional impression on me and so I highly recommend watching it. Although the movie as a movie could be more engaging and exciting, the idea of the movie itself and the impression it leaves on the viewer is powerful. This movie is spiritual in the sense that it conveys to the viewer that life is brief and that love and family are the most important parts of life. It also shows that history repeats itself in different ways and that some things are permanent or at least more permanent than our individual lives. All happens Here.

Thanks to films like Back To The Future, Forest Gump, Cast Away, & The Polar Express, I'm always intrigued by the "next Robert Zemeckis project". In Here, the esteemed director once again shows his technical prowess and innovation--if lacking in the clear storytelling beats his films are usually known for.

For a very basic overview, Here tells the story of a single plot of land--shot from one angle--over a prolonged period of time (dinosaurs to 2020+). Ostensibly it focuses on the lives and family that Richard (Tom Hanks) & Margaret (Robin Wright) cultivate in that space over a lifetime.

There is no doubt that Here is a technical achievement in cinematography from Zemeckis and DP Don Burgess. Making anything compelling for a single fixed camera point seems to violate the very rules of cinema itself, but it works well enough here to hold viewer interest. "Static" does not equal "boring" in any way.

It is also a return--whether via de-aged AI or present countenance--to the great "everyman" roles that Hanks thrives in. He gives a wonderful performance and his chemistry with Wright has remained true over the years.

Yet, there is something missing from Here and I believe it to be, ironically enough, a lack of time in the Hanks/Wright angle. Though it would violate the entire concept to remove the other character arcs altogether, I found myself not at all invested in the Native Americans, Revolutionary patriots, or 1940s inventors who build up the house's "backstory", if you will. I really only cared about Richard & Margaret (and their orbit) from an emotional angle.

So, despite a few heartwarming/thoughtful moments and some fine technical prowess, Here has its ceiling capped by the needs of that technicality. Perhaps if it had been cradle-to-grave leads on screen things would be different, but the broadness in scope also means a narrowing of time in any one area (to the overall film's detriment).

Here is not a film for everyone. It tries something different, with a single focused camera angle and a story that takes place over hundreds (or millions) of years. But that is also part of the issue that keeps it from excelling. We get little time with every story point, with most scenes taking 1-5 minutes before jumping to the next scene. It also takes a bit to get going before we get to the meat of the story.

If it had been a bit more focused on our main group of characters, the ending would have had a much bigger impact. There was also a bit too much CGI that looked rough and a focus on getting characters right up to the camera for scenes all felt a bit too forced. It's also a bit over the top of how much stuff happens in a single space.

In the end, 'Here' is an ambitious film that ultimately fails to deliver a fully satisfying story as it's too concerned with its notion of showing you everything that has happened in this one spot and making the camera angle the main focal point of the story.