40/26

Based on the comic book “Here” by Richard McGuire

Tale

A generational story about families and the special place they live, where they share love, loss, laughter, and life. First published as a strip in the comic magazine “Raw” in 1989, it was expanded into a 300-page graphic novel in 2014. [from the trailer] Richard: You know, if you wanted, you could spend the rest of the night here.

But after seeing it, I was disappointed with it

Margaret: I could spend the rest of my life here. I was excited to see this film last night at the AFI Film Festival. Robert Zemeckis, known for “Back to the Future,” loves using technology to illustrate his films.

“Here” – somewhere in New England or Pennsylvania)

In this film, he uses different picture-in-picture overlays to show what was happening at different times in the same place (e.g. He also uses rejuvenation techniques to turn Tom Hanks and Robin Wright into teenagers (which is much better done than Scorsese’s “The Irishman”). However, those plus points don’t make up for a mediocre and predictable story that focuses on Tom Hanks (and Robin Wright’s) initially boisterous youth being crushed by the realities of adult life.

I’ve seen it before

Parallel stories of Benjamin Franklin’s son, a Native American, an early aviator, the alleged inventor of the Laz-e-Boy, and a black family all inhabiting the same place at different times ultimately serve as more of a distraction than an enrichment. The gimmicky use of panels eventually becomes tiresome, as does the use of AI to create ancient times and animals. The lead actors (Hanks, Wright, Bettany, and Reilly) are all excellent, but I just wish they’d been given a better script.