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FORREST Gump was a movie by Robert Zemeckis, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright about a man who found himself in the midst of all the big major historical moments of his lifetime. Here is a movie by Zemeckis, Hanks and Wright about a man realising that most lifetimes involve settling down and watching history go by.
The film covers the passage of billions of years – from the time of the dinosaurs to the time of Covid – while centered on one small plot of land. The meteor strikes, the world melts, it freezes over, the sun shines, life returns, and life blooms, on this small plot, before the story moves into the house that comes to be built on it.
Now the change of times, centuries, seasons and sensibilities is captured via what’s happening in the living room of that house. The world passing by its large window is one marker, but so are the furniture, the clothes, the shows on the TV, and the changing family dynamics.
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A description of Here, the graphic novel by Richard McGuire on which the film is based, talks about it capturing a living room “in which the present is locked in a constant conversation with the past and the future”.
If only what sounds great in concept got translated as well onto the screen. The present is not just locked in this living room, it is squished between too many pasts and too many futures. You will find yourself trying to figure out the different timelines, which intercut each other, without learning much about any, but for Richard (Hanks) and Margaret (Wright).
The two stars who gave Zemeckis his Forrest Gump success are clearly his main concern in Here. Then why not be honest about it? Instead we get an Indigenous couple cavorting in the forest (never too long to require any great research legwork), to Benjamin Franklin and his illegitimate son and the American Civil War (over a couple of horse cart rides), to a budding pilot earning his wings to the fears of his wife (Dockery, wasted), to a couple who are presented as the inventor of the Lazy Boy chair (the man does all the work, she is an admiring supporter), to a long bit about Richard’s father who survived WWI and returned to a life of selling vacuum cleaners (Bettany), to a present-day Black couple with a White house help who stick around only long enough to tell their 16-year-old how to handle things if hauled down by a cop.
For all of them, life has its share of thorns, including death, heartache, needy children and dashed dreams. In fact, the only ones who pass the living room unscathed are the Lazy Boy couple, who dance, romance and prance through, with no children on the horizon.
So what are to make of Here? That life is largely a losing battle against regrets? This film ticks that box, with the glaring de-ageing and ageing of Hanks and Wright ranking high.
Forrest Gump’s mama said: “There’s only so much fortune a man really needs… and the rest is just for showing off.”
This is the rest.
Cast: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly, Michelle Dockery
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Rating: 2 stars
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