Hereafter

Szczegóły: Nadrzędna kategoria: Filmy; Kategoria: Recenzje filmowe z Guardiana

Clint Eastwood's latest is an unholy embarrassment that everyone involved will do best to forget, writes Peter Bradshaw

Peter Bradshaw
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 27 January 2011

Hereafter
Production year: 2010
Countries: UK, USA
Cert (UK): 12A
Runtime: 129 mins
Directors: Clint Eastwood
Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Cecile De France, Frankie McLaren, George McLaren, Jay Mohr, Matt Damon
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Clint Eastwood fans may, from now on, wish to put their hands over their ears and loudly sing "lalalala" when anyone mentions this film. It is a bizarre and baffling turkey, one of the most purely puzzling features to be released this year so far. How can so much mighty talent – Eastwood directs a script by Peter Morgan, and Steven Spielberg co-produces – can have produced something so embarrassingly awful? It is set in the US, France and Britain; three sets of people encounter the concept of the hereafter. Marie LeLay (Cécile de France) is a famous French TV presenter who has a horrendous experience on holiday; newcomers Frankie McLaren and George McLaren play two London boys, Marcus and Jason, whose lives are touched by grim fate; Matt Damon is George, an ordinary guy in San Francisco cursed with the burden of being able to communicate with the dead. Their fates intertwine at a book fair in Alexandra Palace in London, where Sir Derek Jacobi, playing himself, is reading from his new audio CD of Dickens. Wha..? Huh..? How did this inert piece of silliness see the light of day? Could it be that Peter Morgan's clout gave him the right to dredge up from his desk drawer some terrible old script? Maybe. Either way, it's one to forget for all concerned.