Hereafter - Movie Review

The Clint Eastwood-directed Hereafter is less about what the hereafter is really like - it seems, according to this movie, to be a mush of the dearly departed walking around, trying to communicate with the living and predicting the future and saving some of us from it and then moving on to whatever business the dead have to attend to on the other side- and more about how the characters deal with their individual tragedies and how their stories intertwine.

An impressive opening sequence of the tsunami in Indonesia, what follows is more of a deliberately paced character study. And by deliberately-paced, yes, I mean slow, but I don't really mind slow and, besides, it's Clint Eastwood who's directing. If you want a fast moving film about the hereafter, direct your own, punk. I liked the scenes of London and Paris and San Francisco, all safe and travelogue-y and temporarily taking me out of the movie and wanting to go actually visit these places. Matt Damon underplays his roll and the kid who *spoiler alert!* loses his brother is charming. I didn't know who the French actress is but, well, she's French and you don't have to say anything else after that, do you?

If you're looking for a more, heavily-plotted movie, you'll be disappointed but there's much to like here. I don't think much, if anything, would be lost watching this on the small screen so it might be one of those movies to wait for on DVD.