Director Robert Zemeckis assembles the writer and stars of his Oscar-winning film “Forrest Gump” for “Here,” a movie that satisfies your need for nostalgia but has none of the emotional pull to make you care. It’s like perusing through family Polaroids kept in a shoebox, only it’s not your family.
Imagine being an immortal and omnipotent observer, standing in one place on Earth as time passes in front of you. You stand there as dinosaurs run around you. You stand there as Native Americans hunt for food around you. You stand there and watch as men dig the foundation for a home and soon find you are enclosed inside the home, standing on a spot in the home’s living room area. You watch as a few families move into the home and then move on. That’s the idea behind “Here,” based on Richard McGuire’s graphic novel and adapted by screenwriter Eric Roth.
While we get glimpses of other families that inhabit the home and learn the home’s history, the majority of “Here” is spent with the family of Al and his wife, Rose. We meet them as Al (Paul Bettany) and Rose (Kelly Reilly) buy the home and soon scenes of their life events unfold within the confines of the living room. We see a Christmas morning where Al films his young son Richard play on a toy drum kit that later dissolves into watching a teenage Richard (an AI-enhanced younger Tom Hanks) play with his girlfriend Margaret (an AI-enhanced younger Robin Wright) on the family sofa. Playing leads to pregnancy and we watch as Richard and Margaret wed in the living room and, with no money to move, continue to live under Al and Rose’s roof.
“Here” is about life’s unplanned peaks and valleys: births, deaths, dashed dreams and sacrifices for stability made worthwhile for the warmth of the world we create as a family. Usually, this universality of familiar familial events would be enough to engage us as an audience. However, “Here” adheres more to the gimmick of McGuire’s graphic novel than the gravitas of focusing on just one family. While Zemeckis uses panels and squares to overlap scenes within the frame, showing different time periods and the similarities we share regardless of the era we’re living in, not spending more or the entire time with only Al and Rose’s family delivers an emotional disconnect. Focusing solely on Al and Rose’s family that eventually turns into Richard and Margaret’s marriage story is the strength “Here” is missing. Case in point: 1978’s “Same Time, Next Year” does it right: we follow the adulterous affair between George (Alan Alda) and Doris (Ellen Burstyn) who meet in the same bungalow every year for two decades. Just spending time with George and Doris over the course of twenty years makes us care about them as they wrestle with being in love but not being able to leave their families- we never get glimpses of the other couples who’ve been in their cabin to show that other people have trysts too.
In short, “Here” comes up short with a superficial view of the similarities we share. The strength it needed was a more focused look into the familial bonds we build.