The Forrest Gump power trio of Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, and director Robert Zemeckis unite for another movie about time and our passage through it—although this one’s a tad more ambitious.
How to watch Here in New Zealand
Here is screening in New Zealand cinemas from October 31, 2024.
What is Here about?
Based on the 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire, with a screenplay by Eric Roth (who scored an Oscar for Forrest Gump, so that’s four veterans of the boomer bait classic), Here is set in a single location. However it spans a vast stretch of time. The comic covered a period from 500,957,406,073 BCE to the year 2033 CE.
Zemeckis’ film focuses on four families that inhabit a house built on the spot in 1907, chiefly former artist Richard Young (Hanks) and his wife, Margaret (Wright). Zemeckis keeps the camera locked off for almost the entire running time, trusting on his editing choices to carry the story. And we just noticed that Alan Silvestri is on music duties, which, along with cinematographer Don Burgess, brings our running total of Gump alumni to six.
The cast of Here
In addition to Hanks and Wright, we’ve got Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly as Al and Rose Young, Richard’s parents and previous owners of the house. Michelle Dockery and Gwilym Lee play the Harters, the joint’s first owners; Ophelia Lovibond is pin-up model Stella Beekman; and David Fynn is inventor Leo. No idea how the last two factor in, though.
Here trailer
Why we’re excited about Here
Hmm.
Well, here’s the thing. Zemeckis has always been a technical innovator, from the live-action/animation mash-up of Who Framed Roger Rabbit to inserting old mate Hanks into a variety of historical footage in Forrest Gump, to his fixation with motion capture in stuff like The Polar Express and Beowulf. But when was the last time you really liked one of his films?
We have to go all the way back to 2016’s Allied, and we’re in the minority on that one. Most people land on Cast Away, and that was at the turn of the century. Add into that the film’s AI de-aging techniques, which seem to ape the glassy-eyed uncanny valley effect that scuppered his mo-cap works, and we’re a bit worried. But we’re willing to be convinced.
