Review: Juror #2

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Clint Eastwood's "Juror #2" - the actor-director's 40th effort behind the camera and, possibly, his last - is a well-made, old-fashioned courtroom drama that tackles questions of morality and the pursuit of justice - and the lack thereof - in our criminal justice system.

This is the type of adult entertainment that is so very rarely found in the mainstream cinema anymore, one that has been overpopulated with sequels, reboots, nonstop comic-book-to-screen adaptations, and all other manner of corporate-driven IP. It's a movie that requires a little thought and leaves something to chew on afterward.

It's also a fine film to be Eastwood's last, should that be the case. The director hit a career peak in 1992 with "Unforgiven" and had a renaissance between 2003 and about 2014, cranking out a number of his best films during that period, including "Mystic River," "Million Dollar Baby" and the World War II pictures "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima."

Although I liked "The Mule," a few of his more recent efforts - "Richard Jewell," "The 15:17 to Paris," and "Cry Macho" - were lesser works, so it's nice to see Eastwood once again back in his stride. Any time a film that comes out that has something to say about societal ills, it makes it seem relevant. In the wake of the recent failure of the United States' criminal justice system, this one couldn't be any more timely.

The film focuses on a writer named Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) who gets stuck on jury duty, when he'd much rather be at home with his very pregnant wife, Allison (Zoey Deutch). Having once been chosen to serve on a jury, I know how hard it can be to get out of it. Justin faces such luck and is chosen for a murder trial that has dominated the news.

A prosecutor named Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) with aspirations of becoming the next district attorney - the film is set in Savannah - is leading the case, facing off against a charismatic lawyer played by Chris Messina. The case involves a young couple who was bickering at a bar one night. When the young woman left in anger to walk home in the rain, she never returned home. Her body was found in a creek on the route from the bar to her home.

It's difficult for me to discuss the film without giving away a major plot point, though it's introduced very early in the film and the entire story revolves around it. So, if you don't want anything spoiled, perhaps, you should avoid reading further.

While the boyfriend at the bar is arrested and charged in his girlfriend's death, Justin - an alcoholic who hasn't had a drink in four years - realizes that he might have accidentally been responsible for the girl's death. 

On the night in question, he was at the bar where the argument took place between the couple. Although he didn't drink - Justin was at the bar during a moment of crisis, though he didn't give in to temptation - he struck something on the road during the drive home. Thinking it was a deer and seeing nothing along the road in the rain, he decided to continue driving. But the spot where the girl was found dead and the timing lead him to believe that it was he, not the accused, who killed the girl.

Although most of the other jurors - which include a former cop (J.K. Simmons) and various other characters whose own prejudices regarding the case only slowly become obvious - want to convict the accused man, Justin tries to dissuade them to obtain a "not guilty" verdict due to his own guilt. He seeks advice from his lawyer (Kiefer Sutherland), who is also his sponsor, and is told that he would likely spend his life in jail because law enforcement would not believe that he hadn't been drinking on the night in question.

"Juror #2" plays like a thriller, although its tense moments have less to do with questions of whodunnit, but more the moral quandaries that plague Justin and, increasingly, Collette's prosecutor as they realize that an innocent man might lose his freedom due to their actions.

It's a compelling film that only occasionally veers into the realm of the unrealistic and it's powered by solid performances from Hoult, Collette, Simmons, and other members of the jury, most notably Cedric Yarbrough as a juror whose own experiences blind him to the possibility that the man whom he is judging might be innocent.

So, while on the whole, they might not make'm like this anymore, Eastwood is thankfully less interested in modern filmmaking trends and still making films for adults with a little meat on the bone. The picture also has a great ending that is sure to lead to some discussion. This film has flown a little under the radar, but deserves a greater audience.

Review: Gladiator II

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Are you not entertained? For the most part, I was, during Ridley Scott's sequel to his 2000 blockbuster and multiple Oscar winner "Gladiator," although the film is guilty of the excesses displayed by the emperors in both films.

To be sure, this sequel is a much campier and gorier - but not nearly as effective - sword and sandal epic than the original. This time, there's not just one - but two - deranged emperors, beheadings, fights with large monkeys, Denzel Washington delivering a speech with a decapitated head in hand, and - I kid you not - a scene involving sharks in the Coliseum.

The film opens with the Roman army attacking a colony where a refugee from Rome named Hanno (Paul Mescal) lives peacefully with his wife. When his spouse is killed and his colony and captured by a Roman general named Marcus Acacias (Pedro Pascal), he vows revenge.

Hanno is taken to Rome, where he quickly catches the eye of Macrinus (Washington), who trains gladiators and seemingly has a knack for swaying influence in Roman politics. There could be an entire film about Macrinus that would have been more compelling than some of the goings-on in "Gladiator II," which is partly due to his character being such a sinister figure of devious machinations and partly because Washington does such an effective job of - and is clearly having a great time - portraying him.

It's no great secret that Hanno is not just an ordinary warrior who has managed to end up in the Coliseum. He's the son of Maximum (Russell Crowe), the hero of the first "Gladiator" film, and Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), who happens to be involved romantically with Acacias, just to make matters more complicated.

Hanno agrees to fight in the Coliseum after Macrinus promises to find a way that he can one day face Acacias in battle there, assuming that he survives. Meanwhile, Macrinus has plans of his own to influence the Caligula-esque young emperors portrayed by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger.

Much of the film sees various plots being set in motion - one involving Acacias and Lucilla attempting to overthrow the throne by bringing the general's army to Rome, another involving Hanno's aim to get his revenge, yet another in which Macrinus tries to manipulate everyone so that he can get closer to the throne, and there's even a friendship between Hanno and the doctor (Alexander Karim) who tends to his wounds after each fight.

And yeah, as I mentioned, there's a scene in which the gladiators battle each other in the Coliseum while it's filled with sharks. No further explanation is necessary or available because at no point do the filmmakers even try to explain how this is humanly possible.

Despite some occasional silliness, "Gladiator II" is a mostly enjoyable spectacle. There's a sequence late in the film in which Hanno tries to rouse his gladiators to battle by talking about how they can one day achieve the Rome of their dreams, and not the one in which they inhabit that is marked by cruelty and corruption. Let's just say that hit a little close to home at the moment. 

So, no, "Gladiator II" is not as good as the original by any stretch of the imagination. But as far as Hollywood spectacles go, it's amusing enough and very expensive looking - and it has the benefit of a great Denzel Washington performance. 

Review: The Piano Lesson

Image courtesy of Netflix.

There are ghosts both literal and figurative haunting the characters of "The Piano Lesson," a new adaptation of August Wilson's play of the same name. The picture is directed by Malcolm Washington, who finds himself joining the family business of adapting Wilson's work to the screen - his father, Denzel, starred in and directed an adaptation of of "Fences," while brother John David Washington takes the lead in this film as Boy Willie.

The movie opens in 1911 when a group of Black men are springing a piano from its home somewhere in the South from its white owner, Sutter (Jay Peterson), during a July 4th celebration. One of the men stays behind and flees as his home is burnt, while the other two escape with the piano and a young boy on a wagon.

In 1936, Boy Willie shows up in Pittsburgh - where Wilson was from and where many of his plays were set - to claim his rights on the piano. He is given a frosty welcome by his sister, Berniece (a terrific Danielle Deadwyler), who has no intention of giving up the instrument, and a friendlier greeting from his uncle, Doaker (a more restrained Samuel L. Jackson).

Boy Willie has brought along his easygoing pal Lymon (Ray Fisher) to help carry the piano. Also in the mix are preacher Avery (Corey Hawkins), who is trying to convince Berniece to marry him, and another relative named Wining Boy (Michael Potts), who seems willing to share wisdom on various matters, that is, until he takes to the drink.

"The Piano Lesson" is an engrossing and very well acted film about heritage and generational trauma. Boy Willie and Berniece are just a generation or two removed from slavery and their father was killed years before while trying to remove the piano - which he had carved for Sutter, who separated his family through trade. For Berniece, the piano represents the struggles of her family, with which she is not willing to part. But for Boy Willie, it is an artifact that can be sold off so that he can buy farm land down South for himself.

Meanwhile, a ghost occasionally pops up, threatening that "The Piano Lesson" might turn into a horror movie. The ghost is Sutter, who died when falling into his well, and there are some questions as to whether this was the result of an accident or foul play.

The cast is excellent across the board. Washington plays Boy Willie as a blusterer who seems to believe that if he just keeps talking he will wear people down, so that he can get what he wants. Due to his size, Lymon is an imposing figure, but he's one of the gentler souls of the bunch. Doaker is wise to stay out of the conflict between the two siblings. And although she's not technically the lead character, Berniece is the one who makes the greatest impact due to Deadwyler's terrific work here.

Due to the fact that "The Piano Lesson" is a play, much of the film is spent indoors and a majority of its running time is centered around its characters talking. So, it's a good thing that its cast does such a splendid job of bringing these characters to life. 

And its most captivating aspect is the debate between Boy Willie and Berniece as how one can best honor one's troubled history - by hanging on to an artifact surrounded by so much pain as a means of tribute for those who made their mark on it, or to trade it for money that can be used to make a better life. It's a compelling question in a very good adaptation of a work of one of our greatest playwrights.

Review: Blitz

Image courtesy of Apple Films.

 

Steve McQueen's "Blitz" is a visually stunning boy's adventure set against the backdrop of the London Blitz during World War II that is much in the same vein as Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun" or John Boorman's "Hope and Glory," only much more intense.

During the Blitz - which was taken from the German word Blitzkrieg and translates to "lightning war" - many youths in London and other populous British cities were sent to the countryside to remain safe while their parents remained behind. In McQueen's film, George (Elliot Heffernan) is the young man being sent away as his mother, factory worker Rita (Saoirse Ronan) stays in the city with her father (portrayed by musician Paul Weller).

But what makes "Blitz" unique among the coming-of-age World War II stories is that it is the rare one to tell the story of a child of color witnessing these momentous events. George's father was a Black man from Grenada and - during a harrowing flashback - we learn how he was separated from Rita during an evening out at a nightclub.

George experiences casual racism (being chased away while looking in store windows) and more of the overt kind (young British children mock him about his race) during his daily routines. And once the bombing of London begins, the film examines how the differences among various characters are treated during a moment of great peril.

George is packed away on a train with other children to leave London, but he decides to hop off and head back home after feeling guilty about an unpleasant parting with his mother at the station. During his journey home, he comes across a kind-hearted Nigerian soldier named Ife (Benjamin Clementine) who takes him out on his rounds to ensure that people are adhering to London's lights-out policy at night.

While de-camping at a bomb shelter, Ife has to step in after a white British couple has demanded that a Muslim family sharing the space must hang a sheet so that the white couple does not have to see them. Earlier in the film, George told Ife that he didn't consider himself Black, but it is at this moment - both the mistreatment of the Muslim couple and Ife's righteous stance against the bigots in the shelter - that George reconsiders.

At turns, the film almost becomes Dickensian after George unfortunately runs across a group of crooks led by a creepy Stephen Graham and Kathy Burke who force George - a la "Oliver Twist" - to begin stealing from homes hit by bombs. A sequence at a nightclub where the bodies of the recently killed remain seated in their chairs is particularly unsettling as the crooks pilfer their wares, all the while cracking jokes about the deceased.

While the film's script is occasionally a bit on the nose - a speech about socialism's similarities to Christianity and another regarding how people should respect one another - its often incredible visuals more than make up for it. 

The picture opens with an evocative sequence in which firefighters respond to a burning building that was hit by a Nazi bomb. A firehose out of control knocks a firefighter unconscious, while the others attempt to get it under control. Later, George and others sleeping in a subway tunnel during the Blitz must try to escape as water floods in during the film's most harrowing sequence. In another stunner, George flees a dock and crosses a bridge as German bombs explode all around.

Some have labeled "Blitz" as a minor McQueen film. While it certainly isn't on the level of the remarkable "12 Years a Slave" or the engrossing five-part "Small Axe" series, it is still a solid piece of entertainment. It may not tell us much new about the London Blitz - although its focus on a boy of color makes it unique among stories set during this period - but it's a very well shot and directed period drama with stunning set pieces and solid performances (Heffernan is a real find and Ronan is great as always). It might not be one of McQueen's greatest films, but it's well worth a watch.

Review: A Real Pain

Image courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

People are enigmas and when it comes to understanding another's pain, we're all basically tourists. How can it be, for instance, that someone could be a lonely person when they are the ones who command attention in a room when they enter it or be the first to make friends when they meet a group of strangers?

This is one of many questions in Jesse Eisenberg's sophomore directorial effort, "A Real Pain," which marks a major step forward for the actor's efforts behind the camera. The film, which runs a brisk 89 minutes, follows the story of two American Jews - David (Eisenberg) and his cousin, Benji (Kieran Culkin) - who are on a Holocaust tour of Poland to reconnect with the homeland of their recently deceased grandmother, Dory.

David is neurotic and lives in New York City with his wife and young child, while Benji - who considered Dory his best friend - is a man adrift, apparently living with his mother in Binghamton and seeming to have no current prospects on how to move his life forward.

While David takes great pains to be mannered among the small group with whom he and Benji are taking the tour - it consists of a good natured guide (Will Sharpe), a single woman (Jennifer Grey), a Rwandan genocide survivor who has converted to Judaism (Kurt Egiywan) and an aging couple (Daniel Oreskes and Liza Sadovy) - his cousin, on the other hand, has no problem pushing buttons.

And yet, the group responds to Benji, both his antics (getting them all to pose in front of a statue representing Poland's efforts in World War II) and gregariousness to his occasional outbursts (in one scene, he takes umbrage with the concept that a group of Jews are riding in posh first-class on a train when Polish Jews during the Holocaust rode trains to concentration camps in deplorable conditions; during another at a Polish graveyard, he critiques the guide's insistence on talking in a place where hushed respect is, perhaps, more appropriate).

For a movie about grief, "A Real Pain" is often riotously hilarious. From a comparison between two goodbyes involving the tour guide, Benji, and David to a scene in which Benji's over-exuberance in hearing about the Rwandan survivor's experiences makes one cringe, this film has some of the biggest laughs of any movie I've seen in the past few years.

But it's also a somber picture. The film's score fades away for a moment when the group tours a concentration camp as silence is the only noise befitting such an occasion. There are constant reminders of the horrific things that went on in the country that Benji and David are touring some decades before. There is also, of course, what appears to be the recent loss of the men's grandmother. 

And then, there's whatever is going on beneath the surface with the two cousins. There's a reveal late in the film in which David overshares with the group about Benji's struggles. It's a powerful scene because Eisenberg's David is so convincing in portraying how a person can love someone deeply - in this case, his cousin - while at the same time finding him as abrasive, off-putting, and frustrating as most others feel who come into contact with him.

Eisenberg has somewhat more of a challenge as the buttoned-up David, but "A Real Pain" belongs to Culkin, whose Benji is one of the more memorable film characters I've experienced in some time. He's the guy who never quite grew up and masks his pain with boisterous - and occasionally obnoxious - behavior. He's funny and charming, but can also turn on a dime and make things awkward when something rubs him the wrong way. It's one of the year's great performances.

And "A Real Pain" is one of the year's great movies. It's a lean film that uses its time wisely for great impact. It's loaded with laugh-out-loud moments but there's also a lot to unpack in this story of two people who care about each other but have drifted apart due to the events of their lives. There's something admirable about trying to put oneself in another's shoes and attempting to understand their pain but, as this film argues, this is something that none of us can fully comprehend. 

Review: Emilia Perez

Image courtesy of Netflix.

It's been quite a season of unique moviegoing experiences, from the outrageous horror satire "The Substance" and the gutter poetry of Sean Baker's Palm d'Or winner "Anora" to Jacques Audiard's trans crime musical "Emilia Perez." The latter was a hit at Cannes and is certainly audacious.

The picture opens with a lawyer named Rita (Zoe Saldana) winning a court case for a client whom she knows to be a murderer. Shortly thereafter, she is contacted by an even bigger criminal, a Mexican cartel leader named Manitas Del Monte, who has an unexpected job for her. 

Manitas wants to transition to become a woman and needs someone to move his family - which includes Jessi (Selena Gomez) and several children - to Switzerland, help him fake his death, and start a new life after having a sex-change operation.

Some years later, Rita is in London for work and runs into a woman named Emilia Perez (Karla Sofia Gascon), whom she soon figures out was the former cartel leader. At first she fears for her life, but Emilia tells Rita that she needs her help in bringing her family back to Mexico. Of course, none of them will know who she really is.

If you're thinking this is merely a film about a person who has transitioned getting the chance to reconnect with their family, well, you're in for some surprises. Yes, "Emilia Perez" is a musical - and the musical numbers, I'll add, are varied in quality - but it also follows Rita and Emilia's initiative to help families of the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans who have gone missing due to cartel kidnappings unearth the bodies of their loved ones. 

"Emilia Perez" is vibrant, well acted, and full of energy. It's also a little all over the place. As I'd mentioned, the musical numbers are a mixed bag - some good, a few I could have done without - and the plot veers wildly - occasionally, it concerns itself with the attempt to relocate the missing people, while at other times it focuses on the tension between Jessi and Emilia, whom the former doesn't know was previously her spouse, and there's even a romance between Emilia and a woman who comes to claim the body of a missing spouse.

But for the most part, "Emilia Perez" works. Saldana gives one of her finest performances, while Gascon - who is apparently a Spanish soap opera star - is a revelation and Gomez is grittier than one might expect. So, while not every single aspect of the picture works - the film is directed by a Frenchman and it has an outsider's view of a country's turmoil that is noticeable - "Emilia Perez" is a unique and engaging moviegoing experience. There's a lot going on in this film and most of it is enticing. 

Review: Heretic

Image courtesy of A24.

Although I'm not sure a movie about religion and control was exactly the remedy I needed after one of the worst weeks in American history, I have to give credit where it's due: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods' "Heretic" is a creepy and unsettling horror movie with a wicked performance by Hugh Grant and one of the spookiest villain's lairs of recent memory.

The film's setup is simple enough: Two young women from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints - Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) - show up at a semi-secluded house on a snowy night to spread to the good word. There, they are greeted by a man named Mr. Reed (Grant), who at first seems nice enough as he welcomes them in and makes promises of blueberry pie that his wife is making in the kitchen.

At first, the trio ponder theology through various lenses, from Reed's questions about the Mormon church's history of polygamy to a discussion of which is the best fast food franchise and how that relates to religion. But as Reed begins to act creepier, and the two young women realize that the front door is locked, they recognize that they could be in some sort of danger.

Reed shows the women two doors - one marked "belief" and the other "disbelief." He asks which is scarier: The idea that God exists and allows such suffering or that we might just be all alone on this floating rock out in space. One of the two doors, he says, will lead outside since the front door apparently can only be opened once per day.

There's an interesting point to be made during these discussions before "Heretic" turns into a full-fledged horror movie when Reed tells the women that they thought that his wife - who does not exist - was in the kitchen and that they chose to believe what they were told, even long after signs should have alterted them otherwise. Naturally, he compares their choice to that of believing in God before beginning a lecture, of sorts, on the numerous religions around the world and how close they are in comparison.

The film feels like an unholy blend of topics that Ingmar Bergman might have pondered in his heyday - namely, the role of religion in a world of horrors and suffering - and something similar to the "Saw" franchise. And what ultimately makes the film work is Grant's sinister performance as Reed and Thatcher and East's solid work as the two sisters.

The finale leans a little heavily on aforementioned elements regarding the two young women's faith - and a character seemingly revived from the dead momentarily could, perhaps, have used some rethinking - but this is an otherwise intelligent, moody, tense, and thought-provoking horror movie. Call it elevated horror or whatever you will, but there are few mainstream films - horror or otherwise - these days that tackle weighty subjects in such an engaging manner as this one. 

Review: Anora

Image courtesy of Neon.

Sean Baker's Palm d'Or winner "Anora" is a real spark plug of a movie - a wild, coarse, often funny, and occasionally very sad movie that starts out as being a tale of amour fou, but then spirals into a wild chase through New York when one of its lead characters goes missing.

Baker's films often feature sex workers or those working in sex-related industries. His "Starlet" featured porn stars, while "Red Rocket" chronicled the tale of a former actor in that line of work. "Tangerine" was about two transgender sex workers and his masterpiece, "The Florida Project," followed a young girl and her mother, who occasionally dabbled in sex work.

The title of his new film refers to the full name of Ani (Mikey Madison), a Russian-American exotic dancer who occasionally lets a client take her home for money. Ani's sharp tongue and observational insights seemingly disarm her clients - while performing a dance at a strip club, a client asks her if her family knows where she is at the moment. She poses the same question to him.

One night, Ani meets Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), a fun-loving young Russian who is living in the United States at the moment, while his oligarch parents reside in Russia. He offers to pay her for sex, so she makes several trips to his ridiculously laid-out pad in New York City's outer boroughs. He then invites her to a New Year's Eve party and, finally, to Las Vegas, where in the spur of the moment, he proposes to her.

Not too long after their hasty marriage, two men - Igor (Yura Borisov) and Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) - show up at the door and tell Ivan that his parents want the marriage annulled and that they are flying to the United States to see that this is carried out. Ivan flees the scene and Ani engages in a physical struggle with the two men that goes from being unpleasant to comical. Another man, Toros (Karren Karagulian), who works for Ivan's family shows up and the four take an extended cruise through New York City as they search for Ivan.

"Anora" is really made up of three parts - the first sequences of partying when Ani meets Ivan, the search for Ivan, and a finale in which Ivan's family arrives. The first third - the amour fou section - feels like a blast out of a cannon, all propulsive motion as Ani and Ivan meet and fall in love. The second half often feels absurdist as the four characters search for Ivan and spend a lot of time hurling invective - or, in one scene, just hurling - at each other. The final third is the most, at times, poignant or, at others, just downright sad.

Madison, who was previously seen in one of the recent "Scream" sequels and as a Manson family member in Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," gives a star-making performance. She's a ball of fire and her character is among the most memorable I've seen in a film this year. The rest of the cast is good as well, especially Borisov as Igor, who gets off on the wrong foot with Ani, but eventually tries to make amends.

While "Anora" is quite good, my favorite Baker film is still "The Florida Project," which was one of the biggest gut-punch films I've seen in the past decade (and my favorite movie of 2017). "Anora" has a gut punch of its own and by the time you get there, you'll realize how many mood shifts the film has undergone and how Baker deftly juggles hilarity and heartbreak in the course of its two hours and 20 minutes. 

Review: Here

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures.

 
The concept for Robert Zemeckis' latest film, "Here," is ambitious but the execution, unfortunately, doesn't quite match it. In theory, the film sounds like a great idea - a reunion between the director of "Forrest Gump," one of the biggest films of the 1990s, with its two co-stars, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, that involves a time shifting narrative all from the perspective of a single camera angle from the corner of a room. 

The film is based on a graphic novel by Richard McGuire that tells the story of a single plot of land, from the dinosaurs to the colonial period of American history up through the 1920s and World War II and, finally, settling in to tell the story of a family from the 1940s to the present. The primary story in the film involves World War II veteran Al (Paul Bettany) and his wife, Rose (Kelly Reilly), and their children, one of whom grows up to be Richard (Tom Hanks).

The main concept at play in the film is that Richard and his wife, Margaret (Wright), live with Al and Rose and feel stuck in the house for decades, complicating their marriage, while at the same time Richard gives up his dream of being an artist to sell life insurance and Margaret regrets that she's never gotten out to see more of the world.

One of the film's primary stumbling blocks is its use of de-aging technology that makes Hanks and Wright look like younger versions of themselves. The somewhat plastic-looking versions of these actors often mute the emotions that their characters are emoting. The scenes in which they are older are more convincing.

There are some issues in the script department as well. Often, the characterizations feel a little skin deep and the fact that the film jumps back and forth in time so frequently - from story to story - means that any momentum that starts to build is quickly cut off during a scene, only to be replaced by stories taking place on the plot of land in the past, which include an aviator and his wary wife, an inventor and his significant other, Benjamin Franklin's grandson, some Native Americans living on the land before a home was placed there, and a Black family who move in after Richard and Margaret have moved on.

One example is a sequence during which the father of the Black family is explaining to his son how to act if he is ever pulled over by a cop. The scene's power is undercut by the fact that it is brief and then is quickly followed by some other foray into one of the past stories. Only Richard and Margaret's story is given any weight and even they are frequently interrupted by a quick jaunt back several hundred years.

"Forrest Gump" was a film that gave a tour of the 20th century through the eyes of its main character. "Here" occasionally includes landmarks as that film did - we hear The Beatles on TV for the first time, lots of reruns old TV shows, and the occasional needle drop ("Our House" is maybe a little too on the nose) - but it doesn't feel as momentous because we aren't seeing these moments through anyone's eyes so much as they are being used as indicators as to what year we are in at any given moment. While this is helpful from a narrative standpoint, the constant jumping around in time ends up giving all of the stories the short end of the stick.

"Here" has its moments - a reunion between two of the characters in the house and a home movie screening are effective scenes - but for those hoping for something that resembles Zemeckis' past hits, namely "Forrest Gump," his latest feels more like a conceptually interesting experiment that doesn't quite stick the landing.