CLEVELAND, Ohio — Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks are a perplexing director-actor combination. Their collaborations have shown they’re capable of greatness (“Forrest Gump,” “Cast Away”) and, to put it kindly, the opposite of greatness (”The Polar Express,” “Pinocchio”). But they always swing for the fences.
Their latest project, “Here,” which reunites them with Robin Wright — their Jenny in “Forrest Gump” — is another bold effort that delivers the best of both, a movie that is as frustrating as it is brilliant.
The premise, based on Richard McGuire’s graphic novel, is the sort of simple, yet big idea that might look good on paper, but is much trickier to pull off on screen. The film documents life from one spot on Earth, using a single camera angle to tell the stories of the people who live there over the course of hundreds of years.
The film begins at the dawn of time as dinosaurs roam the land that will later become a house in Pennsylvania. Zemeckis and screenwriter Eric Roth (”Forrest Gump”) introduce the people who will call the place home: an Indigenous man and woman in the 17th century, then William Franklin (the son of Benjamin Franklin), a pilot and his worrisome family in 1907, the inventor of the La-Z-Boy Chair and his free-spirit wife in the Roaring Twenties, a World War II vet and his new (and pregnant) bride, and, finally, a middle-class family who live there during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The film rapidly shifts between the different generations, using visually engaging transitions. Zemeckis and editor Jesse Goldsmith cleverly cut out windows in the frame, changing scenes within each box before expanding them to fill the screen, like paging through a graphic novel. The vignettes, too many to count, offer slices of life across time — but they often feel mundane and pointless. Benjamin Franklin? Really?
“This is like the Carousel of Progress at Disney World,” my wife whispered early on.
The film’s pace eventually settles down and its charms begin to sneak up on you as the focus shifts to the family who occupy the house the longest. There’s nothing particularly unique about the Youngs — war veteran Al (Paul Bettany), wife Rose (Kelly Reilly), their son Richard (Hanks) and the love of his life Margaret (Wright) — or the 60 years they spend in that living room.
Instead, “Here” is more interested in the minutiae of everyday life. Separately, these scenes — an argument, an unexpected announcement and an important decision — seem random. But Zemeckis, whose penchant for sentimentality and nostalgia is his moneymaker, turns these disparate parts into an extraordinary journey of the ordinary, capturing the joy, pain, love and loss that come along the way. The director, with a big assist from composer Alan Silvestri, excels at making life’s smaller, fleeting moments feel monumental, releasing the claustrophobia of the film’s confining setting into an outburst of emotion.
Powerful performances by the core four prevent the narrative from devolving into a big-screen adaptation of “This Is Us.” Bettany, as Al, the family’s Willy Loman-esque patriarch, and Wright, as Margaret, a wife and mother bound to a home she struggles to make her own, are especially effective. Wright and Hanks were born to share the screen. Much will be written about the AI and digital effects used to de-age the actors, but their performances are strong enough to overcome any distractions from the technology’s occasional hiccups.
The most ambitious movie of the year is also likely the most divisive— not just among audiences, but within each person who sees it. High-concept, yet relatable; manipulative and deeply moving, it’s a film that will drive you mad and bring you to tears.
“Here” answers the eternal question, “If these walls could talk, what would they say?” with a collective, “A lot. How much time you got?” Most, but not all of it is worth listening to.
“Here” is rated PG-13 and has a run time of 1 hour, 44 minutes. The film opens in theaters on Friday, Nov. 1.