The living-room history of 'Here'

 

Robin Wright and Tom Hanks get an AI makeover

The Robert Zemeckis  movie “Here” was released in theaters last fall and has since been roundly savaged by critics. It showed up on Netflix last week, so this unqualified critic decided to have a look. My verdict: It’s not half bad.

The movie’s central conceit is its static point of view. From beginning to almost the end, the camera never moves. Through it we witness an extremely brief history of time, and then a pretty long history of a single living room somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard. 

Families come and go, from pre-Colonial times to the present, and their stories unfold on this single stage. During a scene from the 60s, say, a frame will pop up showing a portion of the room as it looked in the ‘30s, and then the scene will, after a few more frames, transition to that decade and that story.

It’s not the most compelling narrative device, but it’s interesting even when the various stories don't quite mesh. It’s a novel way of showing the never-ending march of time and mortality. Also, the ever-changing trends in room decor. I found it kind of poignant. But then, the older I get the more receptive I am to mawkish sentiment. Hell, I’ve been known to get misty at certain Budweiser commercials. 

The other interesting thing about “Here” is the AI face-transformation technique that lets Tom Hanks and Robin Wright appear as their younger selves — and later, much older than they really are. The effect is slightly eerie, and thus not wholly convincing. But this shows what the technology is capable of. We’ll no doubt be seeing it again.  Especially when the stars, like Hanks and Wright, have appeared in multiple earlier films that can be used to train the AI.

”Here” is no masterpiece, but neither is it the one-star pile of crap many reviewers would have you think.  It held my attention to the point that I didn't feel a need to look at my phone. Let's just say I've seen far worse movies actually win Oscars.