'Hereafter'

'Hereafter' (PG-13) (3 1/2 stars)

Writer: Peter Morgan
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Matt Damon, Cecilie DeFrance, Jay Mohr, Frankie McLaren, George McLaren, Richard Kind, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jennifer Lewis, Thierry Newic, Steven Schirripa

Clint Eastwood keeps on making strong movies even at the age of 80. He shoots fast but he takes his time now in telling his stories. He really has become a master storyteller. He is surrounding himself with great screenwriters but he is picking intriguing material and each film is tackling a different genre. I didn't ever imagine Eastwood making a movie about the hereafter but he does here and the results are again outstanding. "Hereafter" deals with the subject about what happens to us after we die. It is a restrained, beautiful, haunting and touching movie with a great screenplay by Peter Morgan who wrote "The Queen". "Hereafter" deals with three different stories dealing with three different characters dealing with death. One is a psychic played by Matt Damon and boy is Matt Damon great in every role he touches. He has given up the psychic profession because he sees it as a curse and it is interfering with having a normal life. The second character is a french female journalist who has survived a near death experience during a tsunami. The opening scene where this disaster takes place is beautifully filmed by Eastwood and very effective. The third character is a young London schoolboy who has lost his twin brother in an accident. The movie tackles the ideal of an afterlife through these three characters.

"Hereafter" doesn't try to hit us over the head with symbolism and it is not heavy handed at all. I am happy that Peter Morgan has written this movie because someone else might have made a sappy and over-the-top movie. Morgan is a restrained writer who has written three complex characters and given them stories that are compelling. I love how this movie ends with tact, restraint and beauty. It doesn't end with a profound statement or give us a definite answer on what happens when we die. It gives the characters closure without giving us some final message or concrete answers.

I was very moved by the story of the schoolboy and when he asks the psychic to help him reach his dead brother it is a heart breaking scene. I was also intrigued by the journalist and the psychic character. Matt Damon gives a subtle and effective performance of someone trying to escape his curse. There is also a bittersweet and moving love affair trying to develop with the psychic. He meets a woman, played well by Bryce Dallas Howard, in cooking class and really likes her but his profession gets in the way. Cecilie DeFrance is very good here as the journalist and she makes us care about her. DeFrance has done some films before like the horror movie "High Tension". She will get noticed by Hollywood due to this movie. She is very beautiful and she strikes the right chord for someone that is rebounding from a haunting near death. She is an effective actress as are the two boys who play the schoolboy and his brother. They are natural actors and they give heartbreaking performances as they both play the twin that survived.

Clint Eastwood is becoming someone we can always trust now to make great and compelling movies. He is one of the few directors dealing with characters instead of sensation and he doesn't rush things. He takes his time in telling the story and he is kind of European in that way. An American, Hollywood director might have made something to try to shake us and pull our strings, manipulate us. "Hereafter" doesn't pretend to know what happens to us once we die and I appreciate that. I think no one can say for sure what happens when we die. By the end I cared about these people more than if there was a heaven or hell.