Throughout his career, Robert Zemeckis has always stayed at the forefront of what technology can do for film. In Back to the Future: Part II and Forrest Gump, he was one of the first to insert fully CGI models into a live action film. With Who Framed Roger Rabbit, he blended fully animated characters seamlessly with live action characters and backgrounds. On films like The Polar Express, Zemeckis was one of the very first to use motion capture for a fully animated film. Now, with 2024’s Here, Zemeckis once again pushes the boundaries with a film shot from one perspective in a film that moves through time with no camera movement.
Here reunites Zemeckis with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in their first collaboration since 1994’s Forrest Gump. In it, Hanks and Wright star as Richard and Margaret Young, a couple living their lives in their parent’s home. The film showcases their lives from childhood through adulthood while also showcasing the lives of their parents and all the past and present owners of the house.
In addition to using such a unique shooting style, the film employs other unique tactics to tell it’s story. As the film is told through vignettes and snapshots of these people’s lives, there are inevitable intercuts between these stories. Zemeckis and editor Jesse Goldsmith accomplish these cuts with partial square boxes that appear on the screen, something I can admit I have not seen before. Here also extensively uses de-aging technology on it’s two main leads to showcase the characters throughout time. This is done to mixed success as both young versions of Tom Hanks and Robin Wrights’ characters look pretty poor.
It is, however, in these scenes where the film is at its best. It can be a little melodramatic at times, but the main story that follows the Young family is inevitably engaging. Whether it be through the immense chemistry and ability to play versions of a character through time that Hanks and Wright are able to capture or from great supporting performances from Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly, that main story is highly engaging.
But, all too often, the film strays away from this story and instead to side plots that have little effect on the overall narrative. These stories show glimpses into the lives of other people who lived in the Young’s house throughout time. While some of these, like the inventor of the La-Z-Boy and his partner, are very fun, many of them do nothing more than break up the pacing and sullying emotional tension from one scene to the next. There are several moments where an incredibly emotional scene happens and is followed by a 5-10 second scene where nothing happens before cutting away again. It’s just a weird choice and I would have rather seen more focus on the main storyline instead.
In the end it really amounts to little more than another forgettable experience that feels fun in the moment but you’ll inevitably forget about it. That’s not to say I didn’t have fun watching Here, because I mostly did. But there’s just not enough of a focus on the story that really has the biggest impact. If you cut out 10 to 15 minutes of the side stories you still get a serviceable movie that feels much more focused and, I think, people would react better to. What we get instead is another Zemeckis flop – something becoming all too common in recent years.
Final Thoughts
Here does a good enough job delivering a story that people can enjoy in the moment. While it doesn’t do anything truly great, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright have palpable enough chemistry to keep you engaged. When they are actually on screen of course. But the lack of focus really hurts the film, keeping it from being anything more than just fine.
