What’s It About
HERE is an original film about multiple families and a special place they inhabit. The story travels through generations, capturing the human experience in its purest form.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
“Here” starts with an ostentatious sequence featuring dinosaurs thundering across pristine land, followed by a time-lapse montage chronicling centuries of environmental transformation. The narrative officially launches in 1503 with an oak tree’s emergence, which survives until 1899, preceding the construction of a Cape Cod house in 1907. While the trailers show the films events within this house’s living room across decades, director Robert Zemeckis actually splits the focus between interior domestic scenes and earlier outdoor sequences. These pre-1907 segments, though visually striking, ultimately detract from the core narrative. Zemeckis partners with stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as Richard “Ricky” and Margaret Young, though they occupy barely half the film’s runtime. The story weaves through multiple timelines and families who inhabit the 1,800-square-foot dwelling, including the Harters, the first residents in 1907, and the free-spirited Beekmans from 1925 to 1944. The major thread throughout the story involves the Youngs, beginning most specifically with Al and Rose Young moving in in 1945. Al, 22, was a WWII veteran with untreated PTSD, who is also an alcoholic trying to make his way into the corporate world as a salesman. Their first child, Richard, is an artistic talent, but his father pushes him to pursue a more conventional career. At 18, Richard brings home 17-year-old Margaret, who receives sage advice from Rose about maintaining career independence. Their romance leads to an unplanned pregnancy and hasty living room wedding in 1964 – a scene punctuated by the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Richard gives up his dreams of being a graphic designer to sell life insurance, and the couple does not leave his parents’ house, much to Margaret’s increasing unhappiness. Where the film fails is in its portrayal of its non-white characters. The brief sequence before 1907 includes two nameless, silent Native American characters (Joel Oulette and Dannie McCallum), making them little more than tokenism. Similarly, the 2015 Harris family storyline, centering on Devon (Nicholas Pinnock), Helen (Nikki Amuka-Bird), and their son Justin (Cache Vanderpuye), relies on such shallow discussions of race rather than substantial characterization. The film’s ambitious scope encompasses historical figures, including Benjamin Franklin’s family, and extends to 2022, when Richard and Margaret revisit their former home. Still, the non-chronological timeline jumping around makes for a rather chopped viewing experience. Basic questions are left unanswered, most notably Richard’s inexplicable unwillingness to set up an independent household with a steady income and single-child family. The production design diligently crafts each era’s authenticity, and the costume work impresses, but those technical achievements can’t make up for a film’s fundamental flaws. The de-aging visual effects look especially unconvincing when showing the leads as young people with unnatural facial features and movements. “Here” ultimately buckles under its own ambition. In trying to document everything from prehistoric times to the COVID-19 pandemic (briefly referenced via a housekeeper’s illness), the film sacrifices the depth of its story for spectacle. If Zemeckis would have focused on the most interesting storylines of family instead of reaching for historical aspects, this film could have delivered a more powerful meditation on time, place, and family. Instead, it offers a technically adventurous but emotionally hollow experiment in storytelling.
OUR RATING – AN OUT OF FOCUS 4