47/10
Based on the comic book "Here" by Richard McGuire
Story
A generational story about families and the special place they inhabit, sharing in love, loss, laughter, and life.. It was first published as a strip in the comics magazine "Raw" in 1989, and was expanded into a 300-page graphic novel in 2014.. [from trailer] Richard: You know, if you like, you could spend the rest of the night here.Margaret: I could spend the rest of my life here..
The first colonial building appears a few hundred feet away in the 1760s, and is based on William Franklin's Proprietary House (Governor's mansion) in New Jersey
Everyone moves into an apartment or house and at some point wonders who lived there before them, and what happened on the very spot they are standing – that is what this film is about. From the vantage of one camera angle we witness history through the eyes of different people in different eras – layers of life and death, happiness and sadness, joy and pain in one spot.Time flows quickly over millions of years in the first seconds of the film, but slows with the introduction of a pre-contact Native American couple. There are flashes of other eras that took place in front of this house over time – the capitulation of the British in 1783 – a fireworks display in the 1840s, a picnic in the 1890s…
Smaller stories about a pioneering aviator and his suffragette wife who live in the house from c
But when a house is built across the street in 1900, the camera becomes imbedded in its living room.The bulk of the film then jots back and forth over the next 120 years. 1900 to 1920; a Bohemian couple that occupied the home in the late 1930s-early 1940s who invented the La-Z-Boy (which is complete fiction as the chair was invented in 1929 in Michigan); and an affluent black family who briefly live in the house from c. 2016 to 2023.
They are the most relatable of all the storylines, but also the least interesting
We never see who lives in the house in the 1920s-early 30s.The majority of the film focusses on three generations of one family who lived in the house from c. 1946 to 2016. Although it may have lacked a riveting story arc, I never found the film dull due in part to the gimmick of anti-aging AI that makes Tom Hanks and Robin Wright age from an almost believable 17 to 77 years of age.It wasn' ;t is a perfect film, some of the green screen acting came across a bit stilted.
