Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.
Clint Eastwood's Hereafter weaves three parallel narratives about death and the afterlife, but the threads never cohere into a satisfying whole. Matt Damon delivers a grounded performance as the reluctant psychic, and the tsunami opening sequence is technically impressive, but the film meanders considerably across its runtime. The storylines feel emotionally disconnected, the London schoolboy arc in particular feels underdeveloped, and the convergence ending is disappointingly tidy given the weight of the themes. The premise has spiritual ambition but the execution is overly cautious and conventional for Eastwood, lacking the distinctive voice needed to elevate it above other meditative afterlife dramas.