Last week, students in CTCS-466: Theatrical Film Symposium were treated to an exclusive early screening of USC alum Robert Zemeckis’ latest film, “Here.” This screening came ahead of the film’s official premiere at AFI Fest on October 25, and both Zemeckis and Tom Hanks attended the Q&A after.
“Here” goes through the breadth of nearly all life on Earth, told from one angle. It sees the dinosaurs go extinct, the Revolutionary War end, and a house get built and inhabited by various families over generations — all from a single view. Conceptually this is an intriguing premise, one that both Zemeckis and Hanks touched on during Thursday’s discussion. Every single inch of the planet has a story similar to this one, witness to the lives of many. So what does this inch have to say?
As it turns out, not much.
History literally lines the foundation of “Here,” but all of the themes, cyclical elements and sociopolitical implications of the film fall by the wayside to accommodate for Tom Hanks’ character’s generational story, and some out-of-place asides to the creator of the La-Z-Boy recliner.
“Here” drives home the idea that human beings’ lives are short in the grand scheme of history, and therefore moments aren’t to be wasted in pursuit of trivialities like needing a job to support your family. It’s difficult to critique the messaging of a film, because ultimately what a film says is what the filmmaker wants it to say. Equally, it’s difficult to not get caught up in the lost potential of a story like this one.
Across the street from the house that much of this film takes place in, is William Franklin’s (son of Benjamin Franklin) residence. There are scant few scenes involving the younger Franklin, but the house itself is always in the background, visible through the window. Earlier in the history of this plot of land, “Here” shows Indigenous Americans living their lives pre-colonization. This latter storyline crops up in the slightest way later, when a necklace is discovered in the backyard, but that’s the extent of the connection. A thread of the idea and existence of colonization runs through this film, but isn’t explored in any meaningful or compelling way. Influenza parallels the COVID-19 pandemic, but again, neither are dealt with in any fashion beyond merely existing. The most recent of the families to occupy the main house — a Black family, where nearly every other character in this entire film, save for the Indigenous group at the beginning, is white — explains to their son what to do during police traffic stop, but in a way that feels both disingenuous and goes unexamined by the rest of the story.
For all of the missteps in this film, its greatest flaw is its reliance on nostalgia. “Here” is soaked to the brim in saccharine sentimentality, almost none of it earned. Moments of conversation surrounding regret are when the emotion actually lands, but these are few and far between. And beyond pushing a narrative of nostalgia where it doesn’t naturally appear, “Here” drives home its fetishization of the past by utilizing AI to de-age its main actors, in order to follow them through the entire extent of their adult lives.
Whenever de-aged actors are on screen in “Here,” this bothersome knowledge sits in the back of your brain. They simply don’t look real. At times, they look like they aren’t even physically occupying the space they take up. Their faces are too smooth, the movements feel unnatural, and ultimately, we all know what Tom Hanks looked like when he was 20, and it wasn’t this, no matter how accurate the rendition might seem. It just feels uncanny.
During the Q&A after the screening, critic Leonard Maltin — in what may have been him misspeaking — referred to the use of AI in the film as a “gimmick.” Both Zemeckis and Hanks jumped to reframe the AI as a “tool” instead, but both their reactions and Maltin’s original word choice are telling. Because ultimately, the use of AI in “Here” is quite gimmicky.
Hanks posed an open-ended question to the audience, asking how long it took to be immersed in the story after the first look at the AI-enhanced imagery. The average was 40 minutes. Hanks seemed to accept this answer, but frankly, a 40 minute adjustment period in a film is unacceptable. Taking a few minutes to be invested in the story is one thing, but a 30-minute-plus period for people’s eyes to simply adjust to the images on screen would be murderous for a film, had a director of less stature been behind it.
“Here” began as a 6-page comic by Richard McGuire published in 1989 before it was expanded into a novel in 2014. For all of the 2024 film’s flaws, “Here” could have been a better stage play, but perhaps is best suited in its print format. The limitations placed on the narrative through the visual framing of the film are interesting, but not utilized in a way that expands beyond its premise. Instead the result is stilted performances and the constant knowledge that you are watching a film. There’s a distinct lack of heart in this story, despite the actual plot, that leads to apprehension and lethargy from its viewers. “Here” tries very hard to sell the idea of being present to its audience, but ultimately just serves as a lesson that authenticity cannot be artificially engineered.