Hereafter

In the opening scenes of the movie Hereafter, Marie Lelay, a famous French anchorwoman, is vacationing somewhere in the Tropics when she’s caught up in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. While trying to stay afloat in the violent flood waters, she’s knocked unconscious and drifts down into the water. As she drowns, her field of vision is filled with a brilliant white light in which shadowy human figures move about. Miraculously, Marie survives and comes to believe that she’s had a vision of the afterlife, a near death experience. And so, she writes a book purporting to prove that there’s a life after death.   
         
Meantime, in San Francisco, George Lonegan is trying to escape his past as a psychic. George can’t keep a girlfriend or live a normal life because of his ability to connect with the spirits of the dead. He decides to get away from it all with a vacation to London.
And in London, a young boy named Marcus has just lost his twin brother Jason in a traffic accident. Unwilling to live without Jason, Marcus begins consulting psychics, all of whom are unable to perform what they promise.   
         
When Marie comes to London to promote her new book, three lives intersect. George and Marcus both happen to hear Marie’s book reading. Marcus recognizes George as a noted psychic; and George, as he touches Marie’s hand, senses her otherworldly experience. Well, to make a long story short, George agrees to do a “reading” for Marcus; and Marie agrees to meet George in a London café. While the future is only hinted at, it appears that Marcus will come to terms with his grief; and George will find love with Marie.
         
This is an uplifting film; and since it starred Mat Damon and was directed by Clint Eastwood, it should have been a money-making hit. In reality, Hereafter barely broke even at the box office; and critical reviews were decidedly mixed with some reviewers finding the movie slow and unfocused while others felt it was just boring. As for myself, I place Hereafter somewhere on my list of ten best movies.
         
Of course, my interest in God and the Life Beyond no doubt made me feel positive toward the film, but I also found the psychology of the characters believable and worthy of my attention. Perhaps today’s movie goers have to have action, violence, and special effects before they like a film. I don’t know.   
         
In a 2010 interview on the Today Show, Clint Eastwood expressed his own ideas about the subject of life after death: “I don’t know what I think about it (the afterlife). I probably tend to think, you’re here for the time you’re here, and you should do the best you can for the time you’re here, and appreciate it and move on. That’s rather simplistic, but that’s where I come out.”
         
One wonders what Eastwood meant by “move on.” Do we move on into oblivion, or do we move on into Eternal Life? I don’t know the answer, but faith tells me there’s something beyond the grave.

~ Richard Russell