Robert Zemeckis' latest movie is insanely ambitious, starting with the dinosaurs and ending in present day with the Roomba. But it's fixed on just one spot.
“Here” reunites Zemeckis, screenwriter Eric Roth and actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, who collaborated on “Forrest Gump.” This time, they’re not telling the larger-than-life story of a man moving through time — they’re telling the centuries-old story of a living room and all the different people who lived there.
In this living room, we see a wedding, a death, a birth, a marriage tested, a funeral, lots of vacuuming, many birthdays, Christmases and Thanksgivings, some sex, adults getting drunk and Jazzercise.
Zemeckis puts the camera at a fixed angle for the movie's entire 105-minute duration without moving. It’s not so strange after a while — so bursting with life is each shot and vignette — but there’s a gnawing feeling that we’re in some sort of film experiment, like testing an audience on how long they'll watch old security camera footage.
The camera may not move but the eras do, melting back and forth in time from pre-history, to the 1700s, to the 1940s, back to hunter-gatherer times and then the ’60s and ’70s, before hitting the early 1900s. It begins and ends in 2022.
Hanks and Wright form the movie's spine, as Richard and Margaret. Over dozens of little scenes, we watch him as a boy grow up in the house and fall in love with Margaret, marry, move her in, have a baby and inherit it all. Whether they survive as a couple isn't guaranteed.
Zemeckis is a filmmaker known for incorporating the latest in technology and this time it’s de-aging as a visual effect, basically turning 68-year-old Hanks into what he looked like while filming “Splash.” It's a lot of work, clumsy often, and Zemeckis has gotten lost in the uncanny valley, trying to tell a very human story about what unites us but by altering the actors so much that the human connection is lost. Look closely and you'll see cigarette smoke go into one character, but never come out.
Other roles include Richard's parents — played brilliantly by Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly — and some unconnected people: a fun-loving couple living in the home from 1925 to 1944, and a less fun couple in the early 1900s. There's an Indigenous couple in the 1600s who frolic in the space the living room will take over in 300 years and another family who rides out 2020 in the house amid the pandemic.
If that isn’t enough, we have an appearance by Benjamin Franklin. Why Benjamin Franklin? He's connected to the house across the street. What he adds is not entirely clear. The movie could do with fewer Founding Fathers and cutesy touches like hummingbirds.
We watch the living room as a TV is added — the Beatles' performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” leads to “CHiPs” — and the vehicles outside go from horse to Model Ts to sedans. The home goes from $3,400 just after World War II to $1 million today and the fashions go from Victorian heeled boots to teased hair and American flag shirts.
“Here” — based on the graphic novel by Richard McGuire — is best when events at different times are linked — like when a roof starts leaking in one era only to dissolve into a pregnant woman's water breaking in another. Or when there's mention of influenza in 1918 and we later see the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
One theme that is touched on but could have been strengthened is the impact of downsizing and economic disruptions on psyches, with Richard's father in full Willy Loman mode one day, sobbing after being laid off: “They shrunk me.” Deferred dreams are another, but there's not enough time for that if you've got silly visits by Benjamin Franklin. And while it's inclusive to embrace Native Americans, the scenes add little to the narrative.
“Here” fails to connect all these centuries of human experiences, other than to celebrate the human experience in all its messiness, triumph and sadness. In fact, if these walls could talk, most of the characters are happiest away from this living room. Maybe the strongest theme is uttered by one character lamenting: “Time just went.”
Zemeckis nicely apes the graphic novel's use of squares within the frame that show a peek at what's going on in different eras — like little time travel devices — and kudos to Jesse Goldsmith for fantastic editing work.
But one visual trick sums up the movie: It’s supposed to be the story of a real wood-and-brick house, but it was filmed at Sony’s studio complex in Culver City, California. The main character is fake. “Here” is nowhere.
“Here,” a Sony Pictures release that premieres Friday in theaters, is rated PG-13 for “thematic material, some suggestive material, brief strong language and smoking.” Running time: 105 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press
