Ever since Million Dollar Baby (2004), Clint Eastwood has had something of a bumpy streak. There have been highs (Letters From Iwo Jima) but more often there were lows (Changeling) or straight up middling efforts (Gran Torino). Hopefully Hereafter, described as a "supernatural thriller," will be more in line with 'Baby' or 'Iwo Jima,' because when Eastwood is on point, he's incredible. The plot description as per IMDb:
A supernatural thriller centered on three people -- a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy -- who are touched by death in different ways.
Honestly, the only thing here that worries me is the whole supernatural element. I don't have a problem with psychics in stories in general, not at all. I just think there needs to be a proper context, and something about this film seems too "straight" and gritty to balance a psychic character; it could end up trivializing the serious situations at hand (was that flood supposed to be a parallel to the 2004 tsunami?). One of the reasons I can't stand the TV show Medium is because everything in it is so damn self-serious that it just comes off as stupid. Let's hope that Eastwood and screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) will find a way to make it acceptable to those of us in the audience who don't give psychics one iota of credibility.
