Movie Review: HERE AFTER

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: September 13th, 2024 / 03:43 AM

HERE AFTER movie poster | ©2024 Paramount

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Connie Britton, Freya Hannan-Mills, Giovanni Cirfiera, Tommaso Basili, Babetida Sadjo
Writer: Sarah Conradt
Director: Robert Salerno
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: September 13, 2024 (theatrical, digital)

On the positive side, HERE AFTER isn’t what we might expect from its set-up. It has some mythologically interesting notions that it expresses clearly. It also doesn’t turn into an exorcism story (not that there’s something wrong with those, except that it would be predictable in this situation). But the film has a couple of problems that prevent it from fulfilling the potential of its originality.

We’re in contemporary Italy. Claire (Connie Britton) is at a piano recital where her teen daughter Robin (Freya Hannan-Mills) is performing admirably. Also present are Claire’s ex-husband/Robin’s father Luca (Giovanna Cirfiera), his new wife and young son, plus a lot of Catholic priests and nuns.

Robin, we soon learn, is trilingual, understanding English and Italian, and fluent in sign language. We are soon told that Robin’s lack of audible speech is due to psychological rather than physiological causes.

Robin is a student at the Catholic girls’ school where Claire teaches. Robin seems popular and happy, and has an audition lined up for a prestigious music academy.

Then Robin is critically injured in an accident (we do not get the details). She is declared dead for twenty minutes – but suddenly revives in the hospital, to the joy of both her parents.

There are some noticeable changes. Robin is speaking aloud again – which would seem to be a good thing. Claire and Luca are surprised but pleased. Then Robin can’t, or won’t, play the piano anymore. Previously warm and dutiful toward Claire, Robin turns sullen and wants Claire to mind her own business.

In other words, Robin starts acting like a pretty typical teenaged girl. Claire is convinced something is wrong. Given the type of movie that HERE AFTER is, we know Claire is correct. Given what we know about life in general, and what we learn about Robin in particular, we’re surprised she hasn’t acted out a lot more and a lot earlier, near-death experience or no.

Claire’s journey stirs our curiosity as she tries to discover what has happened to Robin and what she can do about it. Director Robert Salerno uses this to achieve a visually stirring climax.

But the road there is bumpy. The film is sometimes very talky, and almost never scary. Oddly, it’s also not very moving, despite some incidents that ought to elicit deep emotions.

Salerno and writer Sarah Conradt clearly intend for this to be more about how Claire is affected by her quest than what’s happening to Robin.

What’s not clear is whether the filmmakers mean for Claire to be so off-putting. Yes, she is troubled for good reason, and we do feel bad for her, but again, what is revealed over the course of HERE AFTER, in terms of both action and inaction, makes us irritated with the character.

Britton plays Claire with commitment and sincerity. Hannan-Mills enacts Robin with commendable subtlety. Cirfiera is convincing as the clueless father, and Tommaso Basili provides compassion as a friendly doctor.

HERE AFTER gives us food for thought. It just doesn’t dramatize this as well as it could have done.

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