Robert Zemeckis is one of the most iconic directors of all time. With titles like Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Cast Away. and Who Framed Roger Rabbit under his name, Zemeckis has carved out a legacy for himself as a technologically curious master director. Undeterred by a string of flops in recent years, Zemeckis’ latest movie is a huge swing for the fences. It’s called Here and it serves as a reunion of the Forrest Gump creative team – it’s directed by Zemeckis, stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, and it’s co-written by Eric Roth for good measure.
Here tells the story of one little space of the earth over the course of millenia where the camera doesn’t move. One angle for basically the whole runtime. ***In the opening scenes, the audience watches as dinosaurs roam, then a meteor strikes and an ice age takes hold, before eventually natives begin to settle on the land. Even later, a house is built, and that one camera angle is conveniently a perfect shot of the living room, where everything of significance seems to happen. The movie follows the story of that house’s inhabitants, a few families, over the course of decades. Its primary focus is on one specific family, which includes Hanks and Wright, and they live there the longest. Audiences watch as trials, tribulations, and great triumphs occur… and through it all, the camera stays fixed.
In execution, Here is a singular cinematic experiment from one of cinema’s greatest experimenters. Is it cheesy and sentimental? Yes. Does every character and plot decision make sense? Not really. Does it work overall? I think yes. And if nothing else, Here is worth seeing just for how unique and interesting the whole thing is.
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