Hereafter 2009 World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and NY Film Festival

Hereafter world Premiere

A drama centered on three people who are haunted by mortality in different ways. George (Damon) is a blue-collar American who has a special connection to the afterlife. On the other side of the world, Marie (de France), a French journalist, has a near-death experience that shakes her reality. And when Marcus (Frankie/George McLaren), a London schoolboy, loses the person closest to him, he desperately needs answers. Each on a path in search of the truth, their lives will intersect, forever changed by what they believe might-or must-exist in the hereafter.

Click below for U.S. Trailer

Eastwood nostalgic about 'Fistful of Dollars' as he shows 'Hereafter' at TIFF
By: Andrea Baillie, The Canadian Press
TORONTO - Screen legend Clint Eastwood unveiled his new drama "Hereafter" at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday 12th September, and recalled another premiere in the city over four decades ago.
"I came here originally (for) the first appearance I made for 'A Fistful of Dollars' 46 years ago," Eastwood said in an interview, looking trim and relaxed in grey pants and a light-coloured golf shirt.
"United Artists thought, at the time, that because Toronto (had) a large Italian population and (the film) was made by an Italian, Sergio Leone, that this would be a great place to come.... We opened it downtown in a theatre — I think it was probably about half full.... There's a great nostalgia there."
Eastwood, 80, has not premiered a film at the Toronto International Film Festival since 1990, when he was here with "White Hunter Black Heart."
He said there's no particular reason why he finally decided to return to Toronto, noting simply that the fest here is "well thought of" and that "it seemed like the thing to do."
"I'm glad to be here because you do get a lot of people who are very interested in cinema here in Toronto and that's nice," he said.
"Hereafter" stars Matt Damon as a blue-collar worker with a special connection to the afterlife. Three parallel storylines unfold in London, San Francisco and France, all involving characters who have lost loved ones or had brushes with death.
The film opens with a spectacular rendering of a tsunami (Eastwood's biggest foray into special effects to date), but after that mind-blowing sequence, the story unfolds at a slow and thoughtful pace.

Eastwood said he is drawn to that type of measured storytelling.
"In this MTV generation that we live in, I think it's something that I still like to embrace," he said.
"That we actually unfold the stories and get to know the people and get to know a little more detail about them, rather than play to the common denominator or the lack of attention span that sometimes people feel goes on now."
Damon's character is at the centre of the film — a no-nonsense psychic who regards his powers as a curse rather than a gift.
Eastwood and Damon forged a bond while filming the 2009 apartheid drama "Invictus."
Asked why he wanted to work with the actor again, Eastwood joked: "I've asked myself that question many times," before adding that he's long been a fan of Damon's work.
After a long and varied acting career, Eastwood, of course, has become a prolific director in recent years, helming Oscar contenders including "Mystic River," "Million Dollar Baby" and "Flags of Our Fathers."
Still, the plain-spoken movie-maker — who could be heard playing piano in the hotel lobby before a series of media interviews — gave little insight when asked how he creates such cinematic magic, chalking it up to "intuition."
Damon said Eastwood just makes it look easy.
"I think it's like any great artist or musician. It seems very simple and of course it's not because it's years of plying his trade.... Things feel intuitive but they're not."
Asked what he learned from working with Eastwood, however, Damon begged off.
"Too numerous to count," he said. "TNTC."
"The great thing about making movies is you can't perfect it," he added. "It's like golf or one of those things. It's just really fun because you learn something every single time out, whether it's working with a great director or whether it's working with a schmo, and you learn what not to do."
The weighty subject matter of "Hereafter" has many observers suggesting that Eastwood is contemplating his own mortality. The director, however, said he doesn't really have any theories about the afterlife.
"I've talked to people who claim to have had near-death experiences and they paint a similar picture, but I don't know. I mean I just haven't been there," he said.
"And I don't intend to go there before my time."
"Hereafter" is slated for release on Oct. 22.
Below: Clint and Dina at the world premiere in Toronto
Hereafter: Clint Eastwood Goes Supernatural
By Richard Corliss, TIME, Monday, Sep. 13, 2010

Clint Eastwood's Hereafter opens with the most exciting, expertly assembled flood scene in movie history. A tsunami gathers force in its path toward an Asian beach resort, swatting a large ship as if it were a toy boat. Then it crashes on shore and pours through the town. Special-effects experts know that water is among the hardest computer-generated elements to render accurately, but this tsunami's power is utterly plausible. At Hereafter's world-premiere screening on Sunday at the Toronto Film Festival, the 1,500 spectators in the Elgin Theatre gasped as one — one frightened, enthralled child at the ultimate Saturday matinee.
What they saw was a scene whose editing builds the tsunami horror with urgency and clarity. It inundates viewers in the larger disaster while assuring that they keep track of the two characters they already know: Marie (Cecile de France), a popular anchorwoman on French TV, who's shopping in the resort village when the wave breaks and is swept away in the churning tide, and her boss and lover (Thierry Neuvic), back at their hotel. Marie is pulled underwater but surfaces, and seems to have survived, when —Whack! — she is knocked out. As she loses consciousness, she has a near blinding glimpse of shadowy figures in a tableau of radiance. She is thrown ashore, where two men desperately try to revive her, without success. A minute later, she spits out water. If she were dead then, she's back with the living now.

Eastwood movies don't usually boast moments like this: a CGI action scene so brilliantly managed that Michael Bay could only dream of having it on his résumé. Was the tsunami sequence mostly the work of second-unit directors and effects wizards? Or did Steven Spielberg, one of Hereafter's executive producers, lend his legendary gift for painting grand canvases of disaster that also show an acute attention to human detail? Even if the scene were all Eastwood's doing, it launches the movie with a wondrous blend of art, technique and entertainment. And it has almost nothing in common with the pensive, sprawling supernatural narrative that follows.
At a slim, graceful 80, and at the end of the most acclaimed decade of his long and lauded career (with Academy Awards as director and producer of Million Dollar Baby, plus five more Oscar nominations for Baby, Mystic River and Letters from Iwo Jima), Eastwood has nothing to prove. Yet in Toronto, he sounded a little defensive about his films' laconic style. As he told Andrea Baillie of the Canadian Press: "In this MTV generation that we live in, I think it's something that I still like to embrace: that we actually unfold the stories and get to know the people and get to know a little more detail about them, rather than play to the common denominator or the lack of attention span that sometimes people feel goes on now." Hereafter is a daunting test for the video-game crowd — and, for more patient viewers, a film of mixed rewards and challenges.

The script is by Peter Morgan, best known for dissecting British royalty (The Queen, The Other Boleyn Girl and, on TV, Henry VII), American Presidents (Frost/Nixon) and African tyrants (The Last King of Scotland). No one in Hereafter has a title; the three main figures are ordinary people with unusual abilities and startling visions. Marie, after her tsunami trauma, has difficulty concentrating on her anchor duties; taking a leave from the show, she feels compelled to write a book about near death experiences. In San Francisco, George (Matt Damon), a psychic with an apparently genuine knack for connecting people with dead relatives, is cropped by his gift and leaves town, fleeing his entrepreneur brother (Jay Mohr) and a potential girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard). In London, 11-year-old twins Jason and Marcus (George and Frankie McLaren) give moral support to their wayward mother (Niamh Cusack). When Jason is flattened and killed by an onrushing truck, Marcus is left alone, with nothing but his dead twin's ashes and cap to comfort him, and perhaps speak to him.

Eastwood the director is, as he acknowledges, a man with a slow hand. He lets the story play out at a measured pace. Rather than fiddling with scripts, he shoots them pretty much as written (which is why screenwriters love him). If there's inherent drama in the work, it will emerge; if not, scenes can lie there like a row of carp at San Francisco's Sun Fast Seafood Co.
Hereafter has a few of these longueurs: the disintegration of Marie's affair with her producer; George's budding romance (Howard, who can be a winning actress, undercuts her character here with giggling and nervous tics); Marcus' travails in a foster home after his mother gives him up. A half-hour cut from the film's middle portion would enhance the mystery and the mood. But even in this section, the movie has its privileged moments. Marcus' adventure in the Charing Cross underground station is one to savor: a crowded platform, an elusive cap, lives abruptly ended and another one saved. Like the tsunami scene, it boasts deft editing and a killer climax.
Damon, more comfortable here than as the South African rugby star in Eastwood's Invictus, gives a marvelously understated reading of George, a man whose gift is a curse, whose unquiet mind is tormented by the deaths and afterlives of strangers. De France, so impressive in the role of the crime lord's girlfriend in Mesrine: Killer Instinct, has to be both tough and vulnerable as Marie, and she adroitly balances her character's conflicts, afflictions and dreams. The fates of Marie and George, and of Marcus too, are destined to converge. This involves as much coincidence as supernatural manipulation; but the payoff could leave viewers in tears.
Or not. The movie will divide some Eastwood fans, conquer others. The naysayers will be grateful that, from this healthy, workaholic actor-director, there is always the promise of a good movie — if not here, then hereafter. But if you go with his new picture's slow flow, and stick around for its rapturous resolution, you'll see this as a summing up, a final testament of so many Clint characters, from The Man with No Name to Dirty Harry, from Million Dollar Baby's Frankie Dunn to Gran Torino's Walt Kowalski, for all of whom facing down death was a natural part of life. For Eastwood, and viewers in synch with his mature, melancholy worldview, the hereafter is now.

Director still satisfying his creative urges in new movie starring Matt Damon

By Bob Thompson, Post media News September 10, 2010
Clint Eastwood is famous for telling his actors not to over think things. Since 2003, he seems to have taken his own advice by following his instincts as an artist.
His latest directorial effort is a ghost story, called Hereafter. The supernatural thriller opens theatrically Oct. 22, and will screen at the Toronto International Film Festival in its world premiere Sept. 12. (The last movie Eastwood brought to the festival was 1990's White Hunter Black Heart).

Above: Matt Damon arrives for the Premiere
In Hereafter, three stories intertwine for one climactic suspense yarn. Matt Damon portrays an American factory worker-turned-psychic who can communicate with the dead, but is uneasy with the calling.
Cecile De France portrays a French TV reporter and near-death survivor of the great tsunami. Frankie and George McLaren are English brothers, one of whom dies in a car crash. Co-starring are Bryce Dallas Howard, Jay Mohr, Lyndsey Marshal and Thierry Neuvic.
While Eastwood is the driving force behind the film's eerie themes of mourning and loss, the 80-year-old is quick to give credit to Hereafter screenwriter Peter Morgan, who's best known for his Oscar-celebrated scripts for the movies The Queen and Frost/Nixon.
Typically, Eastwood would rather let his film about the afterlife do the explaining, as would Howard.
The actress didn't want to go into detail about Hereafter in an interview last June, but the daughter of Oscar-winning director Ron Howard did offer a brief description of Eastwood as an efficient, no-nonsense moviemaker.

Above: Actress Bryce Dallas Howard at the premiere
"He is truly masterful at what he does," she said. "He knows exactly what he has to get from his actors, and he knows when he has it."
Certainly, Hereafter is another in a string of pictures made to satisfy Eastwood's creative urges.
"A friend of mine said that when you hit your 70s, you kind of do what you want," Eastwood told Postmedia News last year. "Because, what can they do to you and what do you care?"
That attitude has served him well over the last few years. He's received acclaim and Oscar recognition for 1992's Unforgiven, 2003's Mystic River and 2004's Million Dollar Baby.
But he'd much rather discuss the actors' performances, and the fact that he directed four of his stars to Oscar victory two years in a row: Sean Penn won best actor for his part in Mystic River while Tim Robbins won best supporting actor, and Hilary Swank won best actress for her role in Million Dollar Baby, with best supporting actor going to Morgan Freeman.
Even more amazing, Eastwood picked up best picture and directing Oscar nods for 2006's Letters from Iwo Jima. Only eight other foreign language films have managed that, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000 and 1998's Life Is Beautiful. And let's not forget his Letters from Iwo Jima companion war film, Flags of Our Fathers.
In 2008, Eastwood continued his momentum. He helped Angelina Jolie get an Oscar nomination for her lead role in his crime tale, Changeling. And although he was Oscar-snubbed for Gran Torino, the low-budget revenge movie he directed and starred in, the picture did well at the box office.
Last year, the director guided Damon, his Hereafter co-star, to a supporting actor Oscar nod for his role in Invictus, a fiction-based-on-fact movie about rugby and South African President Nelson Mandela's first term.
If that weren't impressive enough, Eastwood is in the pre-production phase for Hoover, the film profile of the controversial FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, which might feature Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role.
It's quite a variety of films reflecting his more perceptive style, although he only begrudgingly acknowledges it.
"I don't know how I balance anything," said Eastwood about his new approach. "I just kind of go along. I do think that, as I've matured -- which is essentially a way of saying aging -- I've reached out to different sides of different stories and different stories that maybe were appealing to me."
The irony is that Eastwood received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the Oscars in 1995 for his body of work, as if the story was complete.
Mind you, his accomplishments were already impressive as an actor, director and producer in a career spanning five decades.
Classic portrayals included the cowboy with no name in Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, his Dirty Harry cop pictures, Unforgiven, and his early directorial efforts, such as 1971's Play Misty For Me, the underrated but newly discovered Bronco Billy in 1980, 1982's Honkytonk Man and the acclaimed Bird in 1988.
Even when he was labelled a right-wing, gun-toting headliner, he admits he was interested in less formulaic films, "but the pressure was on as a young man when I started out in movies to do a lot of action."
That was then, all right. And this is the Toronto festival-bound Eastwood now -- more prolific and more vital than he's ever been.

Exclusive interview with Eastwood and Damon about Hereafter

It’s been twenty years since legendary filmmaker and actor Clint Eastwood premiered, “White Hunter Black Heart” at the Toronto International film festival. He has finally returned, with his latest offering, “Hereafter” that stars Matt Damon as a blue-collar worker with a special connection to the afterlife. Three parallel storylines unfold in London, San Francisco and France, all involving characters who have lost loved ones or had brushes with death. Eastwood who recently turned 80 and Hereafter star Matt Damon sat down with Tribute’s Bonnie Laufer and an exclusive group of reporters to talk about the film.

Bonnie Laufer: So Clint, I understand that in order to get Mr. Damon again, you had to rearrange schedules because he’s got so many projects on the go. Is that a true statement?

Clint Eastwood: He was busy siring children (laughs). Finally he acquiesced and he came back after Christmas and we did a few sections, but then went back to England to conclude the film.

Q: This seems like a bit of a style change for you, Clint…

Clint Eastwood: Well, I just liked the story. I liked the idea of telling three stories simultaneously. I guess it is like some of those French films where at the conclusion the people all come together…

Q: Matt, how does he get such concise performances out of actors?

Matt Damon: Well he is an actor, so he knows a lot about acting and gives the kind of direction that he would want as an actor. He’s been acting longer than…

Clint Eastwood: Don’t say God. (laughs)

Matt Damon: (laughs) I was just going to say usually than most of the actors that he’s working with, so he’s got a lot of knowledge about what’s helpful and what’s not helpful, and the kind of environment to create. And then obviously as a director for 40 years, he knows what kind of environment is great for his crew and knows a lot about everybody’s job and how to make it easier on everybody. And as a result, everybody really feels like they get to do their best work—and in a really fun atmosphere, too.

Q: You don’t dwell on things, I understand… Clint Eastwood likes to move things along?

Matt Damon: Yeah, and that’s good. I think you can fall into a trap with second guessing yourself and fiddling with something forever, and never pulling the trigger and moving on. So much of directing seems to be that ability to be decisive and keep the train headed somewhere, anywhere, and not just stop and tinker until everybody goes crazy.

Q: Were there any issues with the subject matter? Any concern that it will read the wrong way to some people?

Clint Eastwood: Not really. You just kind of do the project the way the story is, in your mind, supposed to unfold. And you can’t tailor it to any particular person; you can just tailor it to your likes and you hope that people will respond to it.

Bonnie Laufer: Matt, was there any preparation on your part, because, you know, usually when you hear about psychics, most of them are out for a quick buck and you don’t know if they’re telling the truth. But with your character in this film, that’s not what it is; it’s a gift, but he calls it a curse. Did you talk to people who say that they do this, or is it something where you went by the script?

Matt Damon: No, I really went by the script. There are some books that I’d read by people who’ve had near-death experiences. But the script was really tight and really well done. Peter Morgan’s a playwright and it feels like doing a play, you know, where every answer you need to get is already there. There wasn’t any point where we looked at each other and said, “I don’t know what he was thinking with this scene.” It all made sense and fit together really nicely.

Q: Clint, you mentioned that everyone has their own take on the afterlife. What is yours ?

Clint Eastwood: Well, I’ve talked to people who’ve claimed to have had a near death experience and they paint a similar picture. But I don’t know—I haven’t been there and I don’t intend to go there before my time [laughs]. You just think of what it must be like and you have to do it in your imagination. Does it exist? I don’t know.

Matt Damon: That’s one of the things that I like about the movie. It comes to that point where this kid says to me, “Where do we go?” and I say, “I don’t know.” And he says, “But you’ve done all these readings,” and I say, “I’m sorry kid, I still don’t know.” And I like that. I like that the film doesn’t try to give any answers.

Q: The tsunami sequence, was that difficult to shoot?

Clint Eastwood: Yes. [laugh]

Matt Damon: Well, you’ve got to wait for the tsunami… [laugh] That’s really tough.

Clint Eastwood: That was the thing that I liked about the material to begin with. Peter Morgan took incidents that really happened—the tsunami, the London bombings, all of these true events—and incorporated them into the story. I thought that was rather clever.

Q: What took you so long to come back to TIFF?

Clint Eastwood: Everything is just sort of, whatever the timing was. This was the first appearance that I’ve made since A Fistful of Dollars, 46 years ago [laugh]. But no particular reason except that the festival is well thought of, people will come here to enjoy it. And it seemed like the thing to do.

Q: Why Matt Damon? What is it about Matt that makes you want to continue working with him?

Clint Eastwood: At first, I didn’t think of using Matt Damon because he had other conflicts. And then finally it came to a slight conclusion in my brain that we were doing three stories, so why not just do two stories and then do Matt’s story when he’s available? So we did that—we did the first two-thirds and then took a hiatus, and then when Matt was available we started his sequence, then went back to England to do the conclusion of the film.

Q: There’s a real sense of time in this movie. There’s a real measuring sense of accomplishment and something coming together…

Clint Eastwood: In this MTV generation that we live in, something that I still like to embrace is that we actually unfold the stories and get to know the people and get to know a little more detail about them. Rather than play to the common denominator of a lack of attention span that sometimes people feel goes on nowadays with the great information age that we live in where everything has to be immediate and over with. Its two hours and you sit there for two hours, and you enjoy the stories or you don’t enjoy it. If your attention span doesn’t have it in you, then you should be watching something else.

Q: The children were amazing, how did you find them?

Clint Eastwood: With the kids, you get the usual kind of child actors, mimicking their adult trainers. We took two that were the least experienced, but they had great faces and they came from a working-class neighborhood in England that was kind of on the rough side. And they just really wanted to do it. It wasn’t as easy as working with the actors that were all professionals, but at the same token, they had a natural kind of way. Sometimes they’d give you absolutely pure gold, and other times you’d have to wring it out of them. [laughs]

Bonnie Laufer: You did such a wonderful job on-screen in Gran Torino, we didn’t see you in Invictus, and you didn’t appear in “Hereafter.” I hope you’re not going to give up being in front of the camera. Are you going to come back?

Clint Eastwood: [coyly] You never know. [laughs]

Q: What are you working on now that’s exciting?

Clint Eastwood: Well, we just finished this one, Hereafter, and I’m just kind of sitting tight. Gran Torino was the last—not the last acting role, but maybe the last acting role. If a great script comes along, I would entertain that, but so far there isn’t one and I’m not looking for it. But directorally, I’m doing this and I’m delving now into a story about J. Edgar Hoover.

Bonnie Laufer: You’re talking Leonardo DiCaprio for that? Sorry, Matt.

Clint Eastwood: He actually approached us on it. He’s very interested in doing it, so that may come about. We haven’t really gotten into that yet. The reason this one has taken longer than normal in post-production—we had it edited in one week—is because of the tsunami. Water is the hardest thing to do in the world in a CGI format. That had to be a really a convincing sequence, because it’s a key sequence. It just took time.

Q: What have you learned from Clint, Matt?

Matt Damon: Oh man, too numerous to count. TNTC. [laugh] The great thing about making movies is that you really can’t perfect it. It’s just really fun, because you learn something every single time out. Whether you’re working with a great director or you’re working with a schmo and learning what not to do [laugh]. Every movie is different—the problems are different, the solutions are different. It’s just kind of fun. You go every day and you’re with this group of people—and Clint put together a great group—and the problems you have to solve are different. You kind of figure your way through the day and get excited over things that go really well, and he gets you home at a reasonable hour.

Clint Eastwood: Everybody asks who your greatest influences are. But even bad directors that you work with or bad actors that you work with, you learn something from them. You learn what not to do.

Bonnie Laufer: Matt you have so much stuff coming up, do you ever get time to rest?

Matt Damon: I haven’t worked since May—I got the whole summer off and I’m not working ‘til December. But this job, because of the way it got set up, all my stuff got crammed together. So rather than being with the crew for a few months, it was really only a month and it was just concentrated, working every day for a month. And then I did True Grit, which was really only 25 or 26 days of shooting, which was spread out over three months. So it seems like I have a lot coming up, but they weren’t like, six-month movies, one after the other.

Bonnie Laufer: We’re going to see you on the season premiere of 30 Rock?

Matt Damon: Yes! Yeah. I love those guys. I really love that show. I actually saw Tina Fey at an awards show and my wife and I went up to her to tell her how much we love the show. So I joked with her by saying, hey if you ever have apart for me… and soon after she called me up and asked me to be in the premiere.

Q: Is the Liberace project going forward with Michael Douglas?

Matt Damon: Well, yeah, it is. We’re really excited about it. He’s obviously going through his health issues, but from what I understand, it’s not going to be a problem. The numbers are very much on his side and he’s a healthy guy, so we’re all just hoping that everything goes well. We’re hoping to be right on track for shooting next summer. But obviously, we’re willing to wait for our star as long as we have to.

Q: You’ve come a long way from “The First Traveling Saleslady” with Carol Channing… Was that your first role?

Clint Eastwood: My first role was Revenge of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. [laughs] Jack Arnold was the director and Bill Alland was the producer. He was the guy who played the reporter in Citizen Kane.

Screen International, 13 September, 2010 By Mark Adams, chief film critic

Hereafter Dir/music: Clint Eastwood. US. 2010. 123mins

Clint Eastwood takes a bold change of pace with Hereafter, a compelling and thoughtfully structured delve into the world of the supernatural, weaving together three separate storylines that all finally converge to satisfying effect. This is no spooky chiller though…instead a fascinating look at how death affects a series of completely different people.Above: Clint with actress Cecile de France

The film is scripted by Peter Morgan – whose impressive track record includes The Queen and Frost/Nixon) - and he has set Eastwood a rather different directorial challenge. This is not a film dominated by action or effects, but instead a complex interwoven story of people trying to deal with the traumas and find solace rather than solutions.
That being said, Hereafter does open in quite spectacular fashion. Successful French television reporter Marie (the spectacularly good Cecile de France) is on holiday with her TV director boyfriend at a tropical beachside resort and one morning she wanders into the nearby town to look for trinkets to take home to Paris.
The resort is then hit with a massive tsunami, and she finds herself swept away in the terrifying torrent of water. She is plucked from the water, and while two men try and save her she finds herself mentally seeing ‘the other side’, strange shadowy white figures against a misty backdrop. She is miraculously brought back to life, but cannot forget or totally comprehend her near-death experience.
Meanwhile in San Francisco, factory worker George (Matt Damon) is trying to hide away from his previous career as a psychic who could communicate with the dead. For him his power is a terrible curse rather than a gift, and he tries to hide himself away and not get close to people.
Taking a night school course in Italian cooking – Damon is engagingly clumsy chopping tomatoes – he meets a woman trying to start her life over (Bryce Dallas Howard), but when they start to get close she asks him to ‘read’ her. He delves into her past and tells her truths which drive her away.
In England young twins Marcus and Jason (Frankie and George McLaren) try to protect their druggie mother from the local social service, but when Jason is killed in a car accident Marcus finds himself taken away from his mother and also haunted by the loss of his brother.
The threesome of George, Marie and Marcus are all touched by death in different ways, and each struggle to find ways to deal with the ways that their memories and emotions drive them to find answers.
Marie takes a leave of absence from her job and writes a book about her experience in the tsunami and about the afterlife – after taking a side trip to Switzerland to talk to an academic who ha studied the hereafter (Marthe Keller in a nice cameo) – while young Marcus visits fake psychics and doctors as he looks to find a way to communicate with his brother. While searching the net he comes across an old website detailing George’s abilities.
The three finally come together in London. George is there on a holiday – and a way to escape his brother (Jay Mohr) and his plans for George to go back into the psychic business – and Marie is in the city on a book tour. The three meet by accident at a book fair, where George is drawn to Marie at a reading and where Marcus spots George and follows him back to his hotel.
Eastwood ends the film with no crash-bang effects or profound announcements. Simply that these three very different people find ways to deal with their brushes with death. George helps Marcus to let his bother go, and in a low-key moment at the end George and Marie find the possibility of love.
Clint Eastwood does not resort to any clever editing to tell the three parallel stories, instead opts for a linear style switching between each storyline in 10 minute bursts, and allowing each of the characters to develop gradually. He does a great job in reflecting the socio-economic circumstances of each character (Marie is wealthy and glamorous, Marcus has a tough housing estate life and George lives modestly and along and works in a local factory) and with no fuss of grandstanding elegantly weaves the parallel storyline together.
Cecile de France is thoroughly enchanting as the glamorous TV presenter who finds her life unraveling after the tsunami (a brilliantly staged effects sequence), while Matt Damon underplays impressively as a man trying to hide from life. Young Frankie McLaren has a tougher job as the tormented youngster, called on largely to look doe-eyed and sad for most of the film, but he holds his own a his storyline develops.
It is good to see Clint Eastwood trying something very different. Fans expecting to see a supernatural thriller will be disappointed….but those interested in a shrewdly made and well-scripted drama about loss and compassion will be intrigued and impressed.
Production companies: Malpaso Productions, The Kennedy/Marshall Company
US and International distribution: Warners Bros
Producers: Clint Eastwood, Kathleen Kennedy, Robert Lopez
Executive producers: Frank Marshall, Tim Moore, Peter Morgan, Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Peter Morgan
Cinematography: Tom Stern
Editors: Joel Cox, Gary Roach
Production designer: James J Murakami
Main cast: Matt Damon, Cecile de France, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jay Mohr, Frankie McLaren, George McLaren, Marthe Keller

Variety, Justin Chang, Sept 12, 2010

A Warner Bros. release of a Malpaso, Kennedy/Marshall production. Produced by Clint Eastwood, Kathleen Kennedy, Robert Lorenz. Executive producers, Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall, Peter Morgan, Tim Moore. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay, Peter Morgan. George Lonegan - Matt Damon Marie LeLay - Cecile de France Billy - Jay Mohr Melanie - Bryce Dallas Howard Marcus/Jason - George McLaren, Frankie McLaren Didier - Thierry Neuvic Dr. Rousseau - Marthe Keller Himself - Derek Jacobi

Clint Eastwood moves into risky new territory with old-fashioned grace and sturdy classical filmmaking in "Hereafter." An uneven but absorbing triptych of stories concerning the bonds between the living and the dead, the 80-year-old filmmaker's latest feature is a beguiling blend of the audacious and the familiar; it dances right on the edge of the ridiculous and at times even crosses over, but is armored against risibility by its deep pockets of emotion, sly humor and matter-of-fact approach to the fantastical. Oct. 22 release may divide even Eastwood partisans, but the intriguing supernatural angle should help generate positive B.O. readings.Above: Clint and his cast at the TIFF

The screenplay by Peter Morgan (taking a break from dramatizing the lives of British celebrities) quickly establishes three parallel narratives, the first of which kicks off in disaster-movie mode: French TV journalist Marie LeLay (Cecile de France) is vacationing in the tropics with b.f. Didier (Thierry Neuvic) when the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami hits. Borne along by the rapidly moving tides, rendered with inexpert visual effects but a vivid sense of peril, Marie hits her head, blacks out and has an otherworldly vision -- all blinding white light and ghostly silhouettes -- before regaining consciousness.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, construction worker George Lonegan (Matt Damon) tries to repress his apparently genuine psychic gift, fending off requests from acquaintances and strangers hoping to communicate with their lost loved ones. Finally, in London, young twin brothers Marcus and Jason (played interchangeably by George and Frankie McLaren) try to ward off social services by covering up for their alcoholic mother, yielding unexpectedly tragic consequences.
Eastwood allows each of these stories to develop in unhurried fashion, always keeping the specter of death hovering in the background. Marie returns to Paris but has trouble readjusting to her job after her traumatic experience, while one of the boys, Marcus, becomes eerily obsessed with psychic phenomena. And George, in an unusually charming development, joins an Italian cooking class (taught by Steven R. Schirripa, boisterously channeling Emeril Lagasse), where he's paired with a beautiful stranger, Melanie (Bryce Dallas Howard).
The question that propels "Hereafter" is how these three yarns will eventually converge (the answer: creakily), and on the face of it, this fractured, globe-trotting tale of fate and mortality bears a strong resemblance to the work of scribe Guillermo Arriaga, specifically "Babel." But while the film trades in too many coincidences -- suffice it to say the tsunami is not the only real-world disaster invoked -- the mitigating charm of Eastwood's approach is how subdued, unportentous and laid-back it is. He seems in no hurry to establish the missing links, trusting us to engage with the characters before we know exactly how they fit together.
As though aware of the raised eyebrows that may greet his borderline-schlocky choice of material, Eastwood pauses midway through to register a healthy measure of skepticism; a montage shows one character consulting a series of psychics, every one of them a charlatan. Even still, we're meant to take it on faith that Damon's George is the real deal (his gifts are even given a biological explanation), and the film presents his frequent glimpses of the netherworld -- similar to Marie's near-death visions -- in an unquestioning manner that viewers will have to either accept or reject.
As unabashedly suffused with emotion as any of Eastwood's films, "Hereafter" is finally less interested in addressing life's great mysteries than in offering viewers the soothing balm of catharsis; the portal to the beyond, as conceived here, serves merely as a practical gateway into inner peace, romantic renewal and, most consolingly, the reassurance that our loved ones never leave us. This sentiment is conveyed when George reluctantly performs a reading for Melanie, all the more powerful for its apparent disconnection from the rest of the story.
The fact that much of the film is set in Europe lends it a unique look and texture in the helmer's oeuvre; Tom Stern's camera at times pulls back to take in the varied landscapes, but bathes many of the interiors in his customary inky blacks, the intense chiaroscuro serving to up the hushed, spiritual quality of the film's most intimate moments. As usual, Eastwood's score is a tad overinsistent if melodically spare, its few notes reiterated on various instruments (including piano, guitar and harmonica), and supplemented here by snippets of Rachmaninoff.
Damon and de France (toplining her first major studio picture) are sympathetic enough as characters who are more or less at the mercy of the cosmos, while the brothers McLaren eventually cast off their Dickensian-moppet shackles, particularly in the final reel. But it's Howard whose relatively brief presence really lingers, her performance starting off goofy and ingratiating before taking on an almost otherworldly intensity.
Camera (Technicolor prints, Panavision widescreen), Tom Stern; editors, Joel Cox, Gary D. Roach; music, Eastwood; production designer, James J. Murakami; supervising art director, Patrick Sullivan; set decorator, Gary Fettis; costume designer, Deborah Hopper; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS), Walt Martin; supervising sound editors, Alan Robert Murray, Bub Asman; re-recording mixers, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff; visual effects supervisor, Michael Owens; stunt coordinators, Rob Inch, B.L. Richmond, Thom Williams; assistant director, David M. Bernstein; casting, Fiona Weir. Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 11, 2010. (Also in New York Film Festival -- closer.) MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 129 MIN.

The Hollywood Reporter, Hereafter - Film Review
By Kirk Honeycutt, September 13, 2010

TORONTO -- Clint Eastwood continues his search for challenging stories that delve into extreme reaches of the human condition in "Hereafter," a globetrotting inquiry into the nature of the afterlife. The film also marks an unexpected turn in the screenwriting of Peter Morgan, away from his survey of political personalities in such films as "The Queen" and "Frost/Nixon" and into metaphysical speculation. The film never is less than intriguing, right from its tour de force opening sequence, and often full of insights into why people long for answers, sometimes with great urgency.

By now Eastwood has established a reputation for the unexpected, so his admirers -- "fans" no longer seems the right word -- plus anyone curious about the subject matter certainly will line up when Warner Bros. releases the film domestically Oct. 22. The film should do very well in Europe next year as well.

One would expect such subjects as mortality and the afterlife would mean a contemplative, even moody piece. But Morgan has planted a sense of immediacy within these international stories about three people searching for answers.

Strange as it sounds, the film reminds a little of old Claude Lelouch movies -- and not just because Marthe Keller, looking wonderful, shows up in one sequence -- because Morgan's story plays with fate and destiny as people's paths eventually cross after incidents in different parts of the world send them on a collision course.

A tsunami tears through a tropical beach town, causing a French television news anchor (Cecile de France) to have a near-death experience. An otherwise normal American (Matt Damon) desperately wants to flee his "curse," a psychic ability to communicate with the dead. Two twin boys in London are inseparable until they are separated by death, leaving the shyer, more dependent brother (Frankie McLaren) desperate to reach beyond the grave for assurance.

Each story has its own subplots and captivating characters. The French woman, something of a celebrity, is in a relationship with her married producer (Thierry Neuvic). The experience has so shaken her that he suggests she take time off to write a political book. She does, but her writing veers off course as she investigates scientists who research the afterlife and the stigma attached to their work.

The psychic aches to get out of the "reading" business, but his brother (Jay Mohr) knows a gold mine when he sees it, and a fledgling relationship with a bright, pretty woman (Bryce Dallas Howard) falls apart because of his unwanted ability.

The twins' mother (Lyndsey Marshal) is a junkie. Following the death of the "older" brother (George McLaren), social workers and even the mother finally agree that his brother must go into foster care while she rehabs. It couldn't happen at a worse time for the lad.

All three stories have a sense of urgency: these are people tormented by the inexplicable. Eastwood establishes their stress but never hurries the film. Many absorbing moments dot the movie that luxuriate in situations and details, such as a cooking class where the psychic meets a potential lover or a London Underground sequence where an enigmatic event rescues the brother.

Eastwood's actors underplay what has potential for hokey melodrama. Indeed, the film nimbly maneuvers through territory few American films enter. Perhaps for good reason: Remember the debacle of "What Dreams May Come?"

Even with all this, the ending is a letdown. It's too facile, too ... well, Lelouch, as a matter of fact. One wants a film dealing with the ultimate metaphysical issue to end on a more profound note than the finish Morgan comes up with.

However, it certainly will give audiences something to debate on the way home. As with "Letters From Iwo Jima" and "Million Dollar Baby," Eastwood has made a movie that shakes up the whole notion of what studio movies can be.

A final note: Eastwood's lilting musical score is among his best.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Warner Bros.)Production companies: Warner Bros. presents a Kenndy/Marshall Co./Malpaso Productions productionCast: Matt Damon, Cecile de France, Frankie McLaren, Jay Mohr, Bryce Dallas Howard, George McLaren, Thierry Neuvic, Marthe Keller, Derek Jacobi, Richard KindDirector/music: Clint EastwoodScreenwriter: Peter MorganProducer: Clint Eastwood, Kathleen Kennedy, Robert LorenzExecutive producers: Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall, Tim Moore, Peter MorganDirector of photography: Tom SternProduction designer: James J. MurakamiCostume designer: Deborah HopperEditor: Joel Cox, Gary D. RoachSales: Warner Bros.Rated PG-13, 123 minutes

Above: Clint and Matt share a joke at the TIFF
Can Clint Eastwood regain his awards luster?
Written by Steven Zeitchik / Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, 21 September 2010 11:52
TORONTO—Judging by the reaction to him at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre on Sunday night, Clint Eastwood can still muster a lot of love. There was standing ovation when he came out to introduce his new film, Hereafter, and the kind of murmurs through the crowd reserved for rock stars and world leaders.
Yet in recent years, the response Eastwood has received from awards voters—those arbiters of taste, for better or worse, in modern Hollywood—has been less enthusiastic.
After three movies that landed Best Picture nominations in a span of four years (Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby and Letters from Iwo Jima) Eastwood has gone colder than the hands around Scorpio’s gun. His last three movies—Changeling, Gran Torino and Invictus—each had clear awards potential. And yet apart from a few acting nominations and two technical nominations, Oscar acclaim has eluded the icon. No director nominations for Eastwood on any of the three films; no Best Picture nominations either.
Eastwood’s most recent effort, the Nelson Mandela-centered sports movie Invictus, was a particular disappointment on that front. Although not a unanimous reviewer favorite, the film contained political subject matter, an inspirational story, historical and period flourishes, and a larger-than-life central character. Its omission from the Oscar Best Picture list last year, when the academy had the luxury of 10 selections, might have stung even a more awards-agnostic filmmaker.
The film that could break Eastwood’s cold streak this year comes in the form of Hereafter, a spiritual/supernatural triptych starring Matt Damon. Those looking for blazingly original subject matter may not be entirely satisfied with three afterlife-related story strands that, inevitably, come together at the end, in the manner of an Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu film or a host of indie dramas from the last decade or so. And with its sometimes gauzy exploration of the topic of the afterlife—particularly in the story of a French woman who believes she has seen the white light and then undertakes a search trying to understand it—the movie leaves itself open to the criticism of pseudodepth that seemingly comes whenever Hollywood tackles spiritual subjects.
But there is a quiet drama and pacing in Hereafter that could appeal to reviewers and the academy’s base. More important, there is a stretching of subject matter and genre, even by the standards of the already-elastic Eastwood. The academy likes to give what are essentially lifetime achievement awards (e.g., Martin Scorsese’s 2006 wins for The Departed) to reward an icon for doing something particularly well for so long. With Eastwood, it sometimes seems moved for a very different reason: to reward an icon for doing so many different things for so long.
If that’s the criteria, Hereafter stands an excellent chance this season. Eastwood’s moral preoccupations are often similar from movie to movie, but his backdrops and genres are radically different. The film is a departure even by those standards. Drop a filmgoer into a theater that’s showing Hereafter and ask him to guess the director. Eastwood may be the 30th or 40th name that comes up.
Eastwood has, in recent years, shown a remarkable consistency at the box office. In the last six years, every one of his movies (aside from Letters from Iwo Jima) grossed almost exactly the same amount, between $33 million and $37 million. (The one exception was Gran Torino, his most successful movie as either an actor or a director, when he caught lightning in a bottle and grossed a whopping $148 million.)
There is a die-hard base that is attracted to Eastwood and his work, a group that is not large but is exceedingly reliable. There used to be a corresponding cadre among awards voters. We’ll see if they return with Hereafter.