Here

Here (2024) – Lovely bittersweet film from Robert Zemeckis (Forest Gump, Contact). It tells the story of several families through time, with the “camera” always staying fixed in a single place. From dinosaurs to Indigenous Peoples to the turn of the (last!) century to present day, you watch time weave in and out and all around this single fixed point. Something I wish I had known before seeing the movie (we noticed this detail as the end credits rolled) – it is based on a graphic novel (long form comic book, for those unfamiliar with the term), which makes the “framing technique” that was used to tie together and shift between time periods make more sense. It was meant to preserve some of the look and feel of the original story medium. Cool concept and excellent execution!

We really liked it, but I do understand why this movie isn’t doing well with audiences, or even critics. It is not a “typical movie” in most respects. Even recent movies that are notorious for jumping back and forth through time (looking at YOU, Christopher Nolan) work hard to have a (more or less) linear story or plot to tell, and the order of the flashbacks helps feed into the story as they are revealed at the appropriate time to keep the main thread moving forward. In Here, these stories aren’t as tightly woven together as they could be, but I think that’s partly by design. The majority of the film is spent on Richard and Margaret, but even their story is not told in a linear fashion.

Think of this as more of a long conversation with an “elderly place,” and this place (the “point of view” of the camera) is telling you about all the families it has watched grow and change over the years, and sometimes one story leads to another in a different time period, shifting back and forth as the memories wander and surface during the conversation. It’s lovely and heartwarming and sad and sweet, just as life always is. The costumes and set design were spectacular! So many small and lovingly layered details were put in that weren’t required, but still added that extra little flair. The performances were all good to excellent, particularly Paul Bettany. We truly enjoyed it, and I’m really looking forward to seeing it again to catch some of the little things that I’m sure I missed.