Hereafter (2010)

Three people in different parts of the world (San Francisco, London, Paris) have confronted death which has affected them deeply: a French journalist (Cecile de France), an American psychic (Matt Damon) and a British boy (George McLaren). The American psychic and the French journalist have both survived near death experiences and the English lad's twin brother (Frankie McLaren) was killed by a truck but their bond remains connected even after death. Directed by Clint Eastwood, the film has an intriguing premise regarding the existence of an afterlife. Fortunately, he avoids any religious reading into the subject matter. The "hereafter" isn't Heaven but it remains a mystery. The film reaches its visual highpoint at the very beginning, a spectacular tsunami sequence in India and it's able to sustain itself for the first hour but then there's nowhere to go! The film doesn't so much end as collapse into a mire of slush and sentiment. The banal score was composed by Eastwood. With Bryce Dallas Howard, Derek Jacobi, Marthe Keller, Jay Mohr, Richard Kind and Jenifer Lewis.