Last night I saw a movie I love that my husband dislikes, "Hereafter" directed by Clint Eastwood. It is a strange film, and attempts to explore near death experiences. There are three stories presented: the first is Matt Damon living in San Francisco, a psychic who is tortured by his gift, the second is Cecile de France, a famous French TV personality who is caught in the tsunami in Indonesia, and the third story is of twin boys in London with a druggie mother more or less fending for themselves. The first images of the film are powerful and strangely beautiful yet profoundly disturbing: the ordinary moments before the tsunami and the rush of the water and the turbulence sweeping up de France's character as she is pulled under and buffeted around. But Damon's character is being pulled under by despondency and lonliness, and the twin boys by their struggle to keep social services from taking them away from their mother, though she is patently unfit. They have become "other" through their experiences. Miraculously, they find each other. The stories and amazing acting of these characters make us feel with them almost immediately, and there are twists and turns that surprise us and show some wit and test the strengths of these main people.
I find this film lovely and truthful, acknowledging the experiences we cannot rationalize, the affinities we cannot understand. Eastwood was courageous in tackling this subject, and has done it with compassion, tenderness and good taste. His guitar music is a lovely woven thread through the film, underlining the motif of fragility and strength. There is a wisdom in this movie that is rare.
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