Hereafter (2010)

Evocative of Babel but less driven, Hereafter is a pensive poem of a movie with tragic overlapping story arcs for three characters: erstwhile San Francisco psychic George (Matt "I don't do this anymore" Damon), conflicted Paris TV journalist Marie (Cecile "I experienced death" De France), and sorrowing London twin Marcus (Frankie and George "Don't leave me alone" McLaren). As our story opens, a tsunami strikes the coastal village where Marie is vacationing; she drowns, has a transitory experience with the afterlife, and revives. The experience weighs on her heavily, leading her to recast her career and write a book that looks for answers. Meanwhile, George has been trying to hide his past career as a genuine psychic from sorrowing seekers who don't want to take no for an answer. At the end, the three protagonists' lives intersect in London at a book fair as George communicates to Marcus the personal words he needs to move on and Marcus helps George contact Marie, a unique and soulful-eyed love interest with whom he might finally be able to have a normal life. To those who kvetch that Hereafter is meandering or inconclusive, not every movie has to be The Bourne Supremacy; accept a movie for what it is instead of what you want it to be (or just make your own). Hereafter is somewhat existential, though tangentially so, and is undergirded with intelligent protagonists who cannot deny their curiosity or sense of community (though George thinks for a season that such denial is his only option). Hereafter does not leave us with a happy ending (though it suggests one) but what movie about genuinely coping with loss and death should? Hereafter is a thinking and feeling person's movie (with wonderful Dickens narrations by Derek Jacobi, who also has a cameo) that reminds us of our mortality and (hopefully) our obligation to make the most of all the life and love and time we have to share. 4.5 stars.