No matter where you go, there you are. It’s a bit of circular wisdom that fits nicely into the structure of Here, co-written and directed by Robert Zemeckis. The premise of Here is that someone somehow plunked a movie camera down on a patch of ground during the late Cretaceous period in what would one day be New England, and left it running for the next threescore million years or so.
Its steady gaze captures some passing dinosaurs and, soon after, the asteroid strike that led to their demise. It sees hummingbirds (40-odd million years ago), early human settlers (a few thousand years back), Ben Franklin (200+ years) and then, around 1900, it ends up inside the living room of a house, where it witnesses several generations of homeowners and their families. Chief among these are Al and Rose (Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly), who bought the place for $3,400 just after the Second World War.
Their offspring include Richard (Tom Hanks), who as a young man falls for Margaret (Robin Wright). They in turn will bring up their children in the house, after being unable to afford their own. (Financial insecurity is an odd but ever-present theme.
) Now, if you’re doing the math and wondering how Bettany (aged 53) and Reilly (44) can possibly be parents to Hanks (68) and in-laws to Wright (58), remember that Zemeckis is the one behind that static camera. Using the latest in de-ageing (and extra-ageing) technology, he turns his stars into younger and older versions of themselves as required. I.
