For worse far more than better, Robert Zemeckis has spent his career striving to push the boundaries of cinematic technology and technique, in movies ranging from Back to the Future to Pinocchio. That mission continues apace with Here, an adaptation of Richard McGuire’s 2014 graphic novel that dramatizes the events of a single geographic space in America over the course of human history, and with a particular focus on the experiences of one 20th-century family.
His camera never moving from its fixed location (save for a closing shot), the writer/director attempts to capture a sense of life—on a micro and macro level—in all its complicated, up-and-down glory. Yet formal tomfoolery proves his real center of attention, much to the proceedings’ detriment. Affected and artificial to the point of aggravation, it’s an interminably draggy endeavor that gives the lie to its oft-spoken phrase, “Time flies.”
Reuniting Zemeckis with his Forrest Gump stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as well as its screenwriter Eric Roth, Here, in theaters Nov. 1, remains literally stationary and yet charts the passage of time in numerous ways, the most recurring of which are square and rectangular frames that materialize over the action’s main setting and contain alternate sights and people, creating an overlapping and inherently intertwined tapestry of then and now.
Zemeckis and editor Jesse Goldsmith meld these geometric visual quadrants and their disparate eras with grace, and they further move backward and forward along their chronological spectrum via multiple transitional devices—rapid cuts, dreamy fades, CGI smears, or sudden shifts brought about by lightning or camera bulb flashes.
At least in this regard, Here is a handsomely constructed affair, although regardless of its fixation on its spatial scaffolding, the film has little interest in playing with the tension between what’s inside and outside its frame. Zemeckis provides a few clever glimpses of the area behind his POV. Still, his tale doesn’t take advantage of the very seen/unseen dynamic that his gimmick seems designed to investigate.
Instead, he’s mostly concerned with depicting the totality of modern life in a sole structure—in this case, a dwelling owned by Al (Paul Bettany) and Rose Young (Kelly Reilly) and later inhabited by their children, the eldest of whom, Richard (Hanks), makes it his own home with wife Margaret (Wright) and their offspring. For them, the abode is the epicenter of their lives, where they laugh and cry, fume and mope, celebrate and commiserate, and mature and evolve.
Zemeckis contextualizes that primary narrative with bygone glimpses of the spot: T-Rexes chasing each other on the eve of extinction; the dawn of the ice age; a Native American man bestowing his love with a necklace; Ben Franklin’s illegitimate son William (Daniel Betts) complaining about his famous dad during carriage rides; a budding 1920s aviator (Gwilym Lee) and his wife (Michelle Dockery); and a 1940s inventor of the La-Z-Boy recliner (David Fynn) and his pin-up spouse (Ophelia Lovibond).
Between these threads and its main plot, Here imagines that this tiny area—and, chiefly, the two-story house eventually built upon it—has seen everything there is to see. It’s a cute notion, albeit one that quickly feels contrived, thanks to characterizations and episodes that are so sketchy they resemble clichés on a checklist.
Over the course of its 104 minutes, Here depicts the Young’s residence as a stage for love and death, marriages and funerals, sex and fights, get-togethers and holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Fourth of July!), successes and failures, happiness and sadness, hope and despondency, and togetherness and alienation.
Zemeckis’ apparent intention is to present the whole range of ups and downs that take place in every home (and every patch of land) in the world, all of which are at once universal and highly distinctive. If that idea is nice in concept, however, it’s leaden in execution; Zemeckis’ myriad snapshots of the past, present, and future are both dramatically hackneyed and chockablock with truisms. Moreover, he tethers the film’s diverse subjects and eras—including a Black family who move in after the Youngs have departed—via echoes and repetitions that are clunky and mundane.
If you can think of something happening to an all-American family, it’s stuffed into Here, from alcoholism, infidelity and infirmity to bitterness, regret, anger, longing, and wistfulness over the path not taken and the fleeting nature of existence. Seeking comprehensiveness, the film renders its incidents in two dimensions, making them corny. Talk about World War II, a clip of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, and ’80s gymnastics leotards are some of the flourishes designed to target one’s nostalgia (aided by Alan Silvestri’s insistently mawkish score). But Zemeckis can’t make them come alive; they’re just conspicuous markers rather than lived-in details, and they undercut rather than bolster the period-specific atmospheres.
Worst of all, though, are the countless computer-generated tricks employed by Zemeckis to realize this saga, the most glaring of which are de-aging effects that make Hanks and Wright look like their younger—and, ultimately, older—selves. Whether at a distance or in close-up, their visages appear distractingly unreal, and merely compound the inauthenticity of their characters, who never resonate as anything more than stick figures conceived in stereotypical terms.
Hanks, Wright and their co-stars all overact in a vain attempt to breathe some measure of idiosyncrasy and vivacity into their parts, but the effort is for naught, since they’re stuck in a game of phony and facile digital dress-up.
Like watching Madame Tussaud’s mannequins in a community theater play, Here becomes more tiresome as it draws closer to its inevitable everybody-moves-out finale, and Zemeckis’ few socio-political nods—Bettany’s military veteran grumbling that no one thanked him for his service; Black parents schooling their son on the precise way to handle being pulled over by the cops—are simply empty gestures.
Only in its final few minutes does the film successfully pull at the heartstrings, suggesting the means by which memories are forever defined by, and wedded to, the places we most cherish. The fact that the writer/director manages to elicit an emotional response after so much dreary mush is a considerable feat. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to salvage this stunt, whose most relatable moment comes late, when Margaret bluntly admits that she won’t miss this house.
