A swirl of concern and outright fear has long been following Robert Zemeckis’s unusual big bet Here, a 30-year reunion for his Forrest Gump co-stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. The film, based on Richard McGuire’s comic strip turned graphic novel, was heralded as the most ambitious use of digital de-aging yet, following the pair through the decades, from teenage years to final days, as part of an ensemble of characters who have lived in the same space over time. Early stills, and a trailer, had clued us into the film being plainly terrifying but nothing had quite prepared us for just how unforgivably dull it would also be. Here lies the year’s most eerie and embarrassing misfire.
Zemeckis was once a director who knew exactly how to manipulate a mass audience. He was the guy who made Back to the Future, Death Becomes Her, Romancing the Stone, Cast Away and What Lies Beneath, a conjurer of the kind of transcendent movie magic we just don’t get that much of anymore. We’re certainly not seeing it in his contemporary work, whether it be pointless sub-par remakes like The Witches or Pinocchio or misfiring tech experiments like The Walk or Welcome to Marwen (I will gladly be one of the few defenders of his perfectly fun 2016 second world war thriller Allied). Here exists in the latter category, another baffling folly that plays this time like a museum installation crossed with a 100-minute insurance advert. His latest gimmick traps us in the same fixed spot as he flits back and forth in time, from the dinosaurs all the way through to Covid, an ugly sitcom melange of surreal FX, painful overacting and pat Live Laugh Love lessons.
