Hereafter
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: October 15, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
21
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 21, 2010
What's much more fascinating and enriching is Eastwood's Olympian vision, the sympathetic and all-encompassing understanding of the pain and grandeur of life on earth. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertOct 21, 2010
This is a film for intelligent people who are naturally curious about what happens when the shutters close. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranOct 21, 2010
This is quiet but potent filmmaking that believes nothing is more important than the story it has to tell. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottOct 21, 2010
One of the reasons that Hereafter works as well as it does - it has the power to haunt the skeptical, to mystify the credulous and to fascinate everyone in between. Read full review
88
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottOct 22, 2010
As a result, Hereafter isn't so deep that it will change the way many people think about the afterlife. But it is heartfelt and thoughtful and, in a way, comforting. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaOct 21, 2010
Eastwood and Morgan's movie, with its epic natural disasters (and a terrifying, man-made one) is optimistic. Hokey, even. But it's beautiful, too. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigOct 21, 2010
It calmly examines death, grief and melancholy, packing an unexpectedly profound emotional gut-punch. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 21, 2010
Damon's portrayal is perfectly understated yet powerful. It's also sneaky; you don't realize how invested you've become in it until the final act, when the characters' stories merge in what seems like too much of a rushed coincidence. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttOct 21, 2010
The film never is less than intriguing, right from its tour de force opening sequence, and often full of insights into why people long for answers, sometimes with great urgency. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 21, 2010
Hereafter is a fascinating, absorbing motion picture, but will work only for those willing to surrender to the story as it unspools at its own deliberate rate. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 21, 2010
A multi-character melodrama about the supernatural that's affecting both in spite of and because of its flaws. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedOct 21, 2010
There is plenty of excitement and pulse in Hereafter, as well as a reluctance to provide easy answers to life's great mysteries. I'm happy to see a great director take on the challenge of new and different material with his customary grace and impressive two-fisted technique intact. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 21, 2010
Hereafter, set to a resonant Eastwood score, truly is haunting. Read full review
70
TimeRichard CorlissOct 21, 2010
The movie will divide some Eastwood fans, conquer others. The naysayers will be grateful that, from this healthy, workaholic actor-director, there is always the promise of a good movie - if not here, then hereafter. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesOct 21, 2010
Lacks the toughness of Eastwood's best work. Read full review
70
VarietyJustin ChangOct 21, 2010
A beguiling blend of the audacious and the familiar; it dances right on the edge of the ridiculous and at times even crosses over, but is armored against risibility by its deep pockets of emotion, sly humor and matter-of-fact approach to the fantastical. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumOct 21, 2010
The signature Eastwoodian music that the director lays over the proceedings - piano tinkle, guitar pluck, and an echo of Rachmaninoff out of Noël Coward's Brief Encounter - can't hold the assemblage together. Read full review
60
SlateDana StevensOct 21, 2010
Though I found Hereafter meandering and occasionally sentimental, I couldn't help but admire Clint Eastwood's ambition in taking on-headfirst-the greatest fact of human existence. Read full review
60
NPRBob MondelloOct 21, 2010
It's as if everyone involved in the film figured they could keep Hereafter from turning ghost-story hokey by making it grounded, beautiful and matter-of-fact. And it sort of works. There are no inadvertent giggles here; it just doesn't add up to enough, after. Read full review
55
MovielineStephanie ZacharekOct 21, 2010
It's hard to know how much of what's wrong with Hereafter stems from Morgan's screenplay, which lacks the characteristic tartness (and brains) of other movies he's written, like "The Queen" and "Frost/Nixon." Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsOct 24, 2010
His (Eastwood) first boring film. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenOct 21, 2010
Hereafter is a consistently identifiable Clint Eastwood movie only in the sense that the prolific filmmaker shows that he still has the ability to confound our expectations of him. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanOct 21, 2010
It starts out with a tsunami - and ends up standing in a puddle. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanOct 21, 2010
Damon, trapped in an inert character, shows little inner turmoil. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezOct 21, 2010
Starts out feeling formidable in scope and theme but ends up awfully small and precious. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinOct 21, 2010
Hereafter occupies some muzzy twilight zone, too woo-woo sentimental to be real, too limp to make for even a halfway decent ghost story. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid DenbyOct 21, 2010
It's the first boring performance of Damon's career, although the bland inertia may not be his fault. The way Eastwood stages the "readings," they hold no terror for George. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinOct 21, 2010
Just because a film takes place entirely in the long shadow of death doesn't mean it has to be this relentlessly dour. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallOct 21, 2010
Hereafter doesn't feel like a Clint Eastwood film; it's more like a very special edition of John Edward's psychic TV show. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 21, 2010
Morgan and Eastwood are scrupulous in keeping their notions of the afterlife as general and inoffensive as possible. They have no religious or spiritual worldview to sell. As I say: Many admire this film to no end. I found its use of recent tragic events, including the London underground bombing, to be more than a little cheap. Read full review
50
Boxoffice MagazineVadim RizovOct 21, 2010
Though Hereafter has plenty to give you pause: its plot flatly insists there's an afterlife without really doing much with the matter, metaphorically or otherwise. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyOct 21, 2010
Hereafter is unpredictable enough to be consistently watchable. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle SmithOct 21, 2010
When an 80-year-old director turns his attention to death, you hope for some insight, or gravitas, or even whimsy or anger. Hereafter has none of that. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 22, 2010
Eastwood and Morgan are not con artists, but their awe here is so unblinking that their film comes across as a transcendent con job. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianMarc MohanOct 21, 2010
It isn't a lack of realism or philosophical consistency that rankles most, though, but rather the anticlimactic story and uninteresting characters that make this Hereafter not very sweet at all. Read full review
40
EmpireWilliam ThomasJan 24, 2011
Slow, ponderous and as shallow as it thinks it is deep, lifted only by an impressive opening and fine work from Damon and Howard. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfOct 21, 2010
What was Clint thinking? (Or Martin Scorsese, when he made "Shutter Island," for that matter.) Read full review
40
SalonAndrew O'HehirOct 21, 2010
A movie that opens with a sensational bang and then proceeds to pursue the Big Questions about life and death in lovely, lugubrious and increasingly off-putting fashion, until all its drama has been frittered away in a dreamy, drifty haze. Read full review
38
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreOct 21, 2010
This Herefter, despite the odd engaging moment, is a terrible letdown, like investing in a belief system and discovering there's no "here" that you've been after all your life. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternOct 21, 2010
Either you buy their Vaseline-lensed visions of the hereafter, or you watch in stony silence, as I did, wondering why there's no one to care about. Read full review
30
Village VoiceJ. HobermanOct 21, 2010
Hereafter is not just a stretch for Eastwood, it's a contortion. The irrationality of the premise is exceeded only by the strategic irrationalities of the plot. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierOct 21, 2010
It doesn't help that Eastwood's laconic style is as torpid as it was in such misfires as "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" and "Changeling." Read full review
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