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overthinking entertainment
Movie: Here
A story about a place and the parade of people living there, sharing in love, loss, laughter, and life. Reunites the Forest Gump team of Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, and Robert Zemeckis.
Adapted from a 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire, Here focuses entirely on one very specific spot in the Eastern United States (probably somewhere in New Jersey), showing us scenes of the lives of those who lived there - from a Lenape couple to a relative of Benjamin Franklin to a series of middle-class families.
posted by EmpressCallipygos on Nov 08, 2024 at 3:42 AM
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So: the reviews were not great. And it covers a narrower focus than the graphic novel. But the idea was intriguing enough that I went to see it; and I didn't think it was that bad.
Zemeckis used AI to de-age Hanks and Penn (and Paul Bettany, in some scenes) when they played the younger versions of their characters, and there have been some complaints of "uncanny valley" moments. However, I only felt that way once, during a brief scene where the teenage Hanks character says two lines and a much older voice comes out.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:45 AM
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Is it just vignettes, or is there an overarching story?
I love Tom Hanks so much, but I can't find a storyline in this movie from watching the trailer.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:36 AM
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There is indeed an overarching story; it's just told via vignettes. And you also get some much shorter unrelated stories about the other people who lived in that specific house (or place).
Non-spoiler list of the stories:
* The trailer shows the very first scene - set during the time of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.
* You see a couple of events in the life of a Lenape couple.
* You see a couple of events in the life of one of Benjamin Franklin's kids.
* You see the story of a couple who lived in the house in the 1910s with their daughter. He's an amateur pilot and she isn't too thrilled about that.
* You see the story of a couple who lived in the house in the early 20th Century; he's a tinkerer and inventor who comes up with a promising idea.
* Most of the story is about a series of events in the life of the Young family - first of Al and Rose Young, a couple who move into the house just following World War II.
* Al and Rose have 3 kids - one of them, Richard, is who Tom Hanks plays.
* Richard ends up marrying his high school sweetheart Margaret (played by Robin Wright) and they also live in the house and raise their own daughter there.
* After all the generations of the Youngs eventually move out, you see a couple of incidents in the life of an African-American family who then buy the house, and are living there during the 2010s into 2020.
The trailer shows a scene that takes place towards the end, with Richard and Margaret going into the now-empty living room and he says "This was our home....we lived here." That's set in the present day.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:49 AM
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Oh, also - the story jumps around from one story to another now and then, so you'll see the scene where Richard brings Margaret home to introduce to his parents followed by a scene from the inventor couple's house, then back to Richard and Margaret, then maybe a moment from when his parents were there, then a scene with Richard's mother vacuuming that switches to the inventor wife vacuuming, and then a bit with Ben Franklin stepping in mud on the ground where that rug is now, etc.
If you saw Cloud Atlas that has the same kind of jumping-between-stories, but the story with Tom Hanks' family has much more of a primary focus than do the others.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:52 PM
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I read the original graphic short story in RAW way back in the day, and was confused when seeing references to a "graphic novel" until I realized that the author had expanded it. I think that I'll get the book and then see if the movie is still in theaters; if not, then I'll watch this whenever.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:37 AM
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