Overview
Here is a historical drama film created by Robert Zemeckis, alongside Eric Roth, based on a graphic novel by Richard McGuire. Zemeckis is set to release the film in 2024, and it will star Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly, Michelle Dockery, and David Fynn. What sets this film apart from standard Hollywood blockbusters is the extraordinary concept of having the film unfold from a single room, depicting the space over the course of thousands of years.
Unlike traditional film and Hollywood blockbusters that focus on characters or a plot, Here is an experimental drama deeply reflective in nature. Here explores time, humanity, and the heartbreak of human life and the permanence of a single place. The film is set to employ a unique layering of real-time de-aging and a non-linear narrative to take audiences on an emotional journey.
Plot and Structure
The film occurs in a single room, built in 1902, but spans prehistoric eras and a distant, speculative future. There is no linear plot. Instead, the film presents a collage of scenes with different inhabitants of the room, fragmented and sometimes overlapping.
One of the most fleshed-out and recurring stories is that of the Young family, starting with Al Young (portrayed by Paul Bettany), a WWII veteran struggling with trauma and alcoholism. He is married to a loving and steady wife, Rose, played by Kelly Reilly. Their son, Richard Young, played by Tom Hanks, becomes the emotional pivot of the film. The audience journeys with Richard, through several stages of life: as a young father, in his later years grappling with the realities of aging and loss, and in a heartbreaking reunion with his wife Margaret (Robin Wright), where he takes her to their old home one last time.
Alongside the Young family’s story, there are several short vignettes featuring other residents: a 1920s inventor couple, an African American family grappling with modern social and racial complexities, a colonial settler, and even some pre-human ancient scenes. The movie concludes with a speculative vision of the future, predicting the house’s eventual destruction and the land reverting to wilderness.
Key Ideas
- The Passage of Time
Perhaps the most recurring theme in Here is time, serving both as a setting and as a character. The film contemplates life as something temporal while places are constant. The people shift, die, and fade into history, and the room remains a mute witness to their wins, struggles, affection, and sorrow. The film’s structure of showing scenes from different eras side by side or layered reinforces the cyclical and interwoven nature of time.
- Memory and Human Experience
Within a few moments, a single room may contain a lifetime of human experience: a person is born, a person dies, a person ages and reflects, there is laughter, there is trauma, deep solitude, and coming back together after a rift. Even if the characters are not completely fleshed out, the coexistence of their shared humanity deepens the emotional narrative. The house transforms into a container of memories, a space where joy and sorrow coexist, leaving behind ethereal marks.
- Technology vs. Authenticity
A Here innovation is the application of AI-based de-aging technology. Actors such as Tom Hanks and Robin Wright are re-aged to appear younger or older by decades, sometimes within the same scene. Although the effect helps deliver a seamless timeline for the characters, it is controversial. While many welcome the emotional continuity the character timelines enable, there are common critiques centering on the disconnection arising from the visuals’ “uncanny valley” quality.
- Continuity and Change
The film focuses on social and cultural changes throughout history, especially examining the different uses for the room. At some moments, it is a gathering place which is filled with life, and then it is transitioned to someone’s hospital bed where they die alone. One era shows a family and their joyful domesticity, while the other shows estrangement and miscommunication. Through these contrasts, Here indicates that while the particulars of existence shift, the emotional essence of life continues to stay the same.
Performances
Tom Hanks gives a heartfelt, but restrained performance as “Richard,” portraying the character over decades. His emotional weight is felt most, in the film’s latter part where elderly Richard revisits his childhood home.
Robin Wright plays Margaret, and while her part is short, her character intersects with Hanks’ in a way that makes her role more than a footnote. Her and Hanks’ quiet, but deep conversations in their later years are some of the most beautiful moments of the film.
As Al Young, Paul Bettany embodies the character of a mentally scarred war veteran. He brings a quiet sense of tragedy to the film’s early sections.
Kelly Reilly’s performance as Rose is warm and understated. She balances the strength and empathy within a family that is burdened by generational trauma.
Although the acting is commendable, the approach of showing quick snapshots of many lives within the movie does not allow for deeper character development. As is, the film seems to be intentionally prioritizing a universal approach over a specific one.
Visual and Technical Execution
Cinematographer Don Burgess crafts a visual tapestry that utilizes light, set design as well as camera framing to differentiate time periods without the need to for a camera movement. While the camera stays still in a soothing way, the various rooms in each scene change dramatically through furniture styles, wall colors, and clothing.
There is extensive use of digital effects, but they are rarely used in a showy manner. The de-aging technology used in the film is done through live processing on-set, allowing actors to be free of heavy post-production burdens like prosthetic makeup or need post-production reshoots. Stefan Dechant, the production designer, deserves credit for developing a room embodying over a century of history, while retaining physical consistency.
Alan Silvestri, the composer, added a gentle, nostalgic score that echoes the film’s tone.
Reception
Here received mixed to polarized reviews immediately after its premiere. While most critics admired its ambition, its meditative quality, and the acting, some felt that it was executed with emotional detachment. While some found themselves emotional during the film’s philosophical aspects, others felt burdened by the film’s slow pace along with the absence of a conventional narrative structure.
Here is a ruptured narrative stitched together in real time. Critics have noted that the film employs heavy-handed symbolism and monologue-style dialogue which at times undermines the film’s emotional authenticity. Nonetheless, most concede that Here is a bold and distinct cinematic experiment: one that seeks to reshape our relationship with space and time in film.
Conclusion
Here is not a film for all audiences. The film’s fixed-camera approach, non-linear chronology, and sparse narrative framework defy conventional storytelling. Yet, for those who choose to yield, the film is an evocative exploration of emotional and resonant depth.
Here, at its finest, captures the everyday moments that connect each of us through the intricate web of existence, spanning centuries. It is a meditation on the themes of place, memory, and the shared human experience. Here is a film that is quiet, experimental, and at times, flawed, yet still asks the exceptionally bold question: If our homes had the capacity to remember everything, what stories would they tell us?
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