Was Here Ever Really...Here?

There’s only one word to describe this year in film, and that’s divisive. Movies like The Substance, Joker: Folie à Deux, and Civil War have all sparked their fair share of heated car-ride-home debates. But instead of picking away at the last few scraps of meat these films have to offer, for my 2024 WTF Cinema Moment, I’m going to focus on a film that barely anyone talked about: Robert Zemeckis’s Here.

I can’t recall another film from a “legendary” director that fizzled away quite like Here did. The closest recent comparison I can think of is Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, but that film was mired in controversy from the get-go. Aside from the whole “one camera angle” gimmick and the awful teaser photo of a de-aged Tom Hanks and Robin Wright hugging, Here seemed poised to be this year’s feel-good hit. Instead, it was panned by critics and audiences alike, earning just $13.3 million against its $50 million budget.

Now I happen to be in the camp that thought Here was fantastic — which probably explains why its complete and utter box-office failure is my 2024 WTF Cinema Moment. It was charming, quaint, and more technically polished than many films with twice the budget. The performances — especially Wright’s — were outstanding, and the story flowed beautifully, despite jumping around in time more than Doctor Who’s TARDIS.

So why was Here, for lack of a better term, this year’s fart in the wind? For starters, I think many audience members simply couldn’t get on board with the static, vignette-style perspective Zemeckis chose to tell the story from. In a world dominated by 10-second TikTok clips and instant DoorDash deliveries, it was asking too much. Sure, it’s a weak lizard-brained excuse for serious cinephiles but it’s also a somewhat understandable hurdle for casual moviegoers to overcome.

Another common complaint from audiences concerned Zemeckis’s use of the much-discussed de-aging. While impressive if only for being executed in-camera using generative AI rather than in post, many felt it was underbaked, leaving characters with an off-putting sheen or glow on their faces at inopportune times.

Though less prevalent, there was also a lot of griping done about the story and performances. On more than one occasion, I saw the plot described as “unremarkable” and “boring.” I also came across a few comments accusing Hanks of phoning in his performance — a barb I don't think I've ever seen levied at America's Dad before. As you can probably guess, I don’t share these views — but they’re out there, nonetheless.

For these reasons — and several others that will baffle me to no end — Here came and went like a Vegas bachelor party, only without all the bang and bluster. It’s undoubtedly a Zemeckis film; from the cast and score to the references and homages, his fingerprints are all over it. Unfortunately — as we've seen with films like Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans and Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon — name recognition and cultural cachet aren't enough to get audiences flocking to the cinemas anymore, and Zemeckis is the latest great to be knocked down a peg by this startling new reality. If that doesn't make you say “WTF,” I don't know what will.