It is not uncommon for movie trailers to be better than the movies they advertise. But in the case of the film “Here,” directed by Robert Zemeckis, the discrepancies between what is promised and what is delivered are so vast that I’m surprised viewers haven’t demanded their money back.
Robert Zemeckis is a renowned director who has given us some of the most iconic films in the history of cinema, including “Back to the Future” and “Forrest Gump.” Given that his new movie stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright (who played the leads in “Forrest Gump”) and that the trailers tease a movie with humor, heart, and technical prowess, it’s natural to assume the film would be perfect for the holidays.
Unfortunately, those tender moments from the trailers actually set up scenes of loss, regret, and disappointment. What appears to be a film about love and compassion is really a contemporary tale about how the things we once thought were meaningful lose their magic and value over time.
This is not a message of hope or faith, but a dark articulation of the nihilism of our times.
When I left the theater, I overheard a woman walking ahead of me say to her husband, “That was the saddest movie I have ever seen in my life.” I felt the same way.
But it wasn’t a cleansing or happy sadness common in tragedies, but rather a sadness of self-pity and despair — a clinging misery that I was at first unable to identify until I finally recognized its source.
“Here” is based on a graphic novel of the same name — a genre known for dark tales and radical cynicism. This is where Zemeckis found the thematic material for movies about everything from the death of the dinosaurs to the rise of dementia.
As a result, this film is not a satire, nor a comedy, nor a tragedy, but a cinematic jeremiad (a prophetic sermon) intended to bring us face-to-face with all the things that plague our interior lives and hold us back from living in unfettered economic and political freedom: teenage pregnancies and shotgun weddings; loveless marriages; lost jobs; squandered fortunes; dreams deferred; lost aspirations, moral compromises and failed second choices.
By showing us so many personal tragedies, Zemeckis may be trying to urge us to live our lives in such a way so as not to regret their passing. But this can’t really be done if destiny is the pitiless monster this movie makes it out to be. If the universe really is little more than a doomsday machine, then perhaps our only option really is to live in the here and now.
This is about as deep as Zemeckis’ reflection on the prevailing cultural zeitgeist gets. But to the film’s credit, there are a few scenes with hints of what “Here” might have been like had it not taken its fatalism so seriously — or tied itself to the graphic novel’s preoccupation with victimization and irreparable loss.
Aesthetically, the entire film is framed by a living room window overlooking the home of Benjamin Franklin’s disgraced son who was the British Loyalist governor of New Jersey. This framing window mimics the frames in the graphic novel. Four different families move in and out of the house, live their lives, and pass away. We watch frame by frame as hundreds of years roll by.
Most of the inhabitants are upper-middle-class white people. The one Black family, however, plays a lesser role in the film’s “epic” unfolding but demonstrates, perhaps more than any other family depicted, a willingness to fight back against complacency, sentimentality, and self-pity.
The most powerful scene takes place when the father tries to explain to his teenage son what to do if ever pulled over by a white police officer. The life-and-death significance of what his father is telling him is not lost on the teenage son, who senses the love, compassion, and importance of the conversation.
Given that there are no other references to the Civil Rights Movement, this dramatic and intimate scene gets swallowed up by the morality tale emphasizing the all-important economic and personal status concerns at the center of all the other characters’ lives.
In another scene, Margaret (the wife of Hanks’ character) brings home her “Life Coach” to explain to her husband why he must “put in the work” to save their marriage.
Here is another place where the sincerity of the actor’s performance suggests a different movie than the one Zemeckis actually made. In a scene lampooning psychotherapy, this life coach is played as an intelligent man clearly serious about his work. If Zemeckis had taken him seriously too, the scene could have been poignant rather than dismissive, depressing, and cynical.
By the end of the film, Margaret suffers from dementia and can’t remember things like her lifelong frustration with her own identity, or the unhappy marriage and the unexpected pregnancy that forced her into it. As she is brought into the living room where she’s lived almost all of her life, the camera swings around for the first time in the film, and we see what Margaret sees: the bland wall on the far side of the window. The point of view shifts from extrinsic to intrinsic as she speaks the final lines of the film, “I have always loved this place.”
One could read into these lines many things, but it’s clearly not an affirmation of anything. Margaret didn’t always love this place; she has forgotten that. And so the film ends with another lost, unlived life in a world where life’s events unfold in a material historical continuum seeded by doubt, skepticism, false memories, and cynicism.
The soulless world of a graphic novel writ large and gaudy — taken more seriously than it ought to be — somehow commands our attention through the advertising, film trailers, and star power.
Even great directors like Zemeckis make bad films from time to time. His next film will probably be much better. But you can skip this one. I wish I had.
