Thirty years ago, director Robert Zemeckis, screenwriter Eric Roth, and actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright created an American classic when they joined forces to make “Forrest Gump.” They — and audiences — have been waiting for a reunion ever since, and this year it finally happened when they reteamed (along with cinematographer Don Burgess, composer Alan Silvestri, and other “Gump” collaborators) for “Here,” a movie every bit as technically and conceptually audacious for its time as “Gump” was in 1994.
Was it worth the wait? Was it ever! In fact, “Here” is not only a bolder, deeper, and better movie than “Forrest Gump” but the best American film of 2024, a dazzling technical experiment that traverses millions of years and a cornucopia of philosophical musings, then distills them all into the purest, most emotionally devastating shot of Zemeckis’ career — indeed, one of the great final shots from any movie, ever.
Using Richard McGuire’s acclaimed graphic novel as source material, Zemeckis and Roth tell a story that all takes place in one confined space from one fixed camera position, yet begins with the dinosaurs and ends with an aging couple (Hanks and Wright) at the end of their lives in post-COVID America. In between are storylines involving Benjamin Franklin, an indigenous couple, the guy who invented the La-Z-Boy (!), and many more, all intersecting and overlapping in Roth and Zemeckis’ astonishingly efficient screenplay that flies by in under two hours.
It’s a bold conceit, and a huge cinematic swing that only a master like Zemeckis could pull off — and he does, with incredibly sophisticated blocking that keeps the space visually dynamic and emotionally expressive without ever being obvious. Every shot is one unbroken take, every composition in deep focus, and the layered imagery, along with the rich ideas the film explores — ideas about time, aging, regret, love, identity, and memory — makes “Here” a film that not only encourages but demands repeat viewings.
Thankfully, it’s now available on all major digital platforms and will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on January 21. All of the home video releases are accompanied by a making-of documentary, welcome news considering the film’s technical innovations — it’s great to see not only how Zemeckis pulled off his one-position experiment, but also the digital de-aging and aging techniques that allowed Hanks and Wright to play their characters from being teenaged to elderly.
In the above exclusive behind-the-scenes clip from the making-of doc, watch Zemeckis, Roth, and Wright discuss reuniting for “Here.”
