What does it mean to live in a house? Do we own houses or are we just leasing them for an era of their lifetimes? In Robert Zemeckis’s latest film Here, he explores the many lives of a house or more specifically a single specific point of view in a journey time. Taking us from an era of dinosaurs all the way through to the time of La-Z-Boy chairs and COVID-19. It is an audacious attempt at grand sentimentality, but one that falls at the very first hurdle.
The film opens with pictures of the same house, going through the various different eras and styles. Like going through a weird time capsule where you can only experience the past from the one point of a house, it shows the evolution of the Earth over time. For the most part, it takes us through the lives of three families, but the bulk of the narrative is with Tom Hanks’s family. Hanks’s character of whom has lived there his whole life.
Whilst Here has the possibility to be a sentimental and grand statement about life, its futility, and the power of the home, it lacks substance. Early on, it is clear that the film has no consistent structure of aim, direction or drive. It flashes between different time periods, flipping back and forth like a metronome going 200 beats per minute. There is no flow, it is choppy and clunky, and at about the 30-minute mark you check out as you realise nothing of interest or importance has happened, and nothing else is likely to.
In turn, the choice to shoot the entire film from one viewpoint would be an interesting idea if there was a better execution of characterisation and narrative journey. However, this single perspective comes across as a gimmick to which there is an unnecessary sentimentality and romanticism without the craft to back it up.
In films where perspective is key, space and place should be of the utmost importance. However, the living room where the film is set is bland, overly large and hollow. It doesn’t feel like a lived-in area but rather a set constructed by someone who has never lived in a home. Even trying to tie it back to the past and being on the estate of a Colonial administrator seems contrived and futile, offering no added layers to the Hanks family arc.
For a director of Zemeckis’s acclaim, it seems a shame that his work over the past eight years or so has been nothing short of disastrous, to the point it is becoming detrimental to his career. Having directed major hits in Back to the Future, Cast Away, Romancing the Stone, and winning an Oscar for Forrest Gump, a director of his acclaim should be lauded, but rather Here is another film that is absolutely pants. A film trying to be sentimental, but is crass, brain-numbing and plotless. Without substance or intrigue, flow or rhythm. A clunky, pointless car crash of a film.
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