Taglines: Touched by death. Changed by life.
The story of three people who have been affected by death. French television journalist Marie Lelay (Cécile De France) is holidaying on a idyllic South Pacific island when it is struck by a tsunami. She is washed away in the flood but rescued and survives, though she may have died before being revived.
In London, a young lad named Marcus loses his twin brother Jason (identical twins Frankie McLaren and George McLaren) who is struck by a truck. He is desperate to try and contact him. Lastly, San Franciscan George Lonegan (Matt Damon) is a genuine psychic who finds his ability a curse as a simple touch will provide him with information from the dead that loved ones so desperately desire. All three live a lonely existence but when their paths cross, they all find closure of sorts.
After.Life is a 2009 American psychological horror-thriller film starring Liam Neeson, Christina Ricci, and Justin Long, directed by Agnieszka Wójtowicz-Vosloo from her original screenplay. After.Life premiered at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles on November 7, 2009. Anchor Bay Entertainment, a division of Overture Films, has acquired theatrical rights for the U.S. and the U.K. The film received an R-rating for the multiple nude scenes with Christina Ricci and was released on 9 April 2010 in a limited release. Anchor Bay released the DVD and Blu-ray on 3 August 2010.
After.Life completed filming in New York at the end of December 2008 with Bill Perkins and Celine Rattray as producers. Galt Niederhoffer and Pam Hirsch are executive producing for Plum Pictures with Edwin Marshall and James Swisher executive producing for Harbor Light. Scenes were filmed in Lynbrook, New York in early December 2008.
About the Production
“Hereafter” was filmed entirely on location in Paris, London, Hawaii and San Francisco. A massive tsunami tears through a small beach town in Indonesia, dragging a French journalist under the waters and into a fleeting death. On the streets of London’s harsh projects, an accident causes a young twin to be cut off forever from the brother that has always guided him. And across the world, in San Francisco, a man disconnects from life to shut out the voices of the dead.
What happens after death? How can someone so close just disappear? How can those left behind continue to live? “Hereafter” is a drama that explores three characters’ search for answers about their own lives in the face of what lies beyond.
“We don’t know what’s on the other side, but on this side, it’s final,” says director Clint Eastwood. “People have their beliefs about what’s there or what’s not there, but those are all hypotheticals. Nobody knows until you get there.”
“I think we all want to believe that there’s something beyond and we’re not sure what that might be,” adds producer Kathleen Kennedy. “It sounds funny to look at it this way, but I think life is often defined in the face of death.”
“Death touches the three characters in this film in ways most people don’t experience,” says producer Robert Lorenz. “But, in one way or another, we can all relate to the core emotions of the story—love, loss, loneliness and connection. These are things we all experience.” Matt Damon, who stars in the film, agrees, noting, “The point isn’t to sit there and be a lonely nihilist. The point is to reach out to the other people that are here on the planet with you. And I think that’s ultimately a very life-affirming message.”
Peter Morgan wrote the screenplay for “Hereafter” shortly after having lost a dear friend in an accident. It forced him to mull the question everyone considers at some point in their lives. “He died so suddenly. So violently. It made no sense. His spirit was still so alive around us, at his funeral I was probably thinking what everyone else was: ‘Where has he gone?’” poses the screenwriter, who also served as an executive producer. “We can be so close to somebody, know everything about them, share everything with them, and then they’re gone and suddenly we know nothing. I wanted to write a story that asks some of those questions. There’s kind of an epic quality to that search.”
Morgan’s idea evolved into the film’s three converging stories. “As I was writing it, I was unaware of the fact that I’d created three very lonely characters who were somehow seeking completion from one another,” he offers. “It was a very unusual screenplay for me. Normally my screenplays are researched, and based on fact. This felt very instinctive and very emotional…unplanned, unschematic. It was a thrilling story to write.”
Years after completing the script and putting it in a drawer, Morgan found himself discussing the story with Kennedy while both were in the midst of other films. “Peter mentioned to me that he was working on this script, called ‘Hereafter,’ that was very different from anything he had done,” recalls Kennedy, who was in post-production on a film with her partner, Frank Marshall, and Steven Spielberg, both of whom serve as executive producers on “Hereafter.” Kennedy was taken with the script and gave it to Spielberg to read. “Steven instantly loved the screenplay and said to me, ‘I know exactly who should direct this—it’s Clint.’ There was something about it that Steven recognized would appeal to Clint’s sensibilities.”
Spielberg, who had worked with Eastwood on his dual films about Iwo Jima, called Eastwood while the latter was in France. Lorenz, Eastwood’s longtime producer, arranged to have the script sent over. “I remember reading it in a little cabana in the South of France, which is a sort of otherworldly experience in itself, and I liked it a lot,” Lorenz recounts. “It’s a simple, realistic but highly original story written with the clear, concise storytelling that Peter has a gift for. Clint read it that same afternoon and said, ‘I want to make that movie.’”
“The way it was laid out, it seemed to be something I had never seen before, and had such great dilemmas and dimensions,” says Eastwood. “I liked the way Peter wrote three stories that stand alone but at the same time are connected.”
Continue Reading and View the Theatrical Trailer
Hereafter (2010)
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Matt Damon, Bryce Dallas Howard, Cécile De France, Thierry Neuvic, Cyndi Mayo Davis, Lisa Griffiths, Jessica Griffiths, rankie McLaren, Charlie Creed-Miles, Lyndsey Marshal, Rebekah Staton
Screenplay by: Peter Morgan
Production Design by: James J. Murakami
Cinematography by: Tom Stern
Film Editing by: Joel Cox, Gary Roach
Costume Design by: Deborah Hopper
Set Decoration by: Gary Fettis
Art Direction by: Patrick M. Sullivan
Music by: Clint Eastwood
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic elements including disturbing disaster and accident images, and for strong language.
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: October 22, 2010
