Here is the story of a well-loved space inhabited by a de-aged Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. The space is just as much of a character as the people. What could possibly go awry? Especially with Robert Zemeckis at the helm? If anyone understands sensitive, unconventional stories spanning several decades it would be the guy who brought us the Back To the Future trilogy and Welcome To Marwen.
Well…
The bulk of the plot, if it can be called that, centers around the Young family, who move into a New England house after World War Two. Oldest son Richard lives most of his life in the house. He brings his girlfriend, Margaret home to meet his family. She gets pregnant in the living room. They get married in the living room. Basically, their entire life takes place in the living room.
They’re not the only ones, though. We see the family who move in after the Youngs, as well as the people who lived there before them, including the inventor of the La-Z-Boy. We see what the ground under the house looked like before the house was built, going all the way back to prehistoric times and when Native Americans lived there, particularly a young couple who lived their lives on the land (There’s even an archaeological dig in the Young’s backyard that unearths a necklace the husband gave his wife.).
Oh, and Ben Franklin’s son lived in the house across the street. He’s rather dismissive and scornful of his father, a revolutionary who takes air baths and flies kites during electrical storms. Later Richard and his brother, Jeffrey, both dress up as Ben Franklin for Halloween and trade Franklin quips.
The movie is set up like a play, or more like a combination of a play and a tableau vivant except that the actors move and talk. Every now and then we’ll see a white rectangle frame something in the room while something else is taking place. It’s both sleight of hand and a transition, although nothing about the movie is linear. Things jump around from the present day to prehistoric times to the early twentieth century or something in between. There’s always connection but difference, and we always see the room from the same point of view. looking out at the street through the window. There’s nothing else in the world but this view of the living room.
Here is strangely entertaining, but it’s also just plain strange, mostly because of the de-aging of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. Hanks, for instance, doesn’t look any different from the time he’s supposed to be eighteen until he’s in his thirties, and the Bosom Buddies vibes are heavy.
Wright doesn’t fare any better, as her face never changes from teenager through middle-age, and I really wish they had gone with how she looked when she made The Princess Bride instead of her Forrest Gump face. I kept waiting for Hanks to call her Jenny.
It’s scary how much AI has improved over the past year or so, but it will never stop being creepy. It doesn’t seem right for actors who are older or gone to be onscreen into perpetuity. The mockups can never replace the real people because they’re too calculated and too perfect, plus their faces are so hard. Humans get rasps in their throats and change inflections every time they say something, not to mention a really good actor will look as if he or she is thinking and processing what they’re doing. There’s no way a CGI fake can do that.
And in the end, Here doesn’t feel like it has much of a point beyond lots of stuff happening on a little patch of earth and the varied, baffling nature of humanity. It also feels really tiny. I guess we’re supposed to see ourselves in it, but most of us do get out of our living rooms once in a while.
Here is currently in theaters. Rated PG-13.
My grade: C+
Principal Cast: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly, Ellis Grunsell, Teddy Russell, Finn Guegan, Callum Macreadie, Lauren McQueen, Grace Lyra, Jemima Macintyre, Billie Gadsdon, Beau Gadsdon, Harry Marcus, Diego Scott, Logan Challis, Albie Salter, Zsa Zsa Zemeckis.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis.
Written by Eric Roth, Robert Zemeckis and Richard McGuire.
It must have been William Franklin on the other side- he and Ben had a rather strained relationship.