[Rating: Swiss Fist]
Across the street from the neighborhood I grew up in, there was a field. The field had a small house, a barn and some horses that many a time I would bring a carrot to as a kid. That farm lasted for over twenty years before being sold and made into multi-million dollar homes. In fact, many of the empty farmland I saw growing up have become homes way too expensive for any middle class person to purchase. Those are my memories of childhood and my memories are always there.
Robert Zemeckis reunites two Forrest Gump stars 30 years later in his own memory. However, this memory is that of a single room and the various occupants within the room, within a house. Here is an ambitious project from the veteran director (as are many of his modern films) that never truly sticks the landing. It over-manipulates its audience and is bogged down by some of the worst CGI Zemeckis has made to date.
This odyssey of a living room begins in prehistoric times when dinosaurs roamed the earth, to pre-Columbian times, the Jazz Age, 1940s and beyond. It’s a lot to take in. The main core of the story focuses on the Young Family with patriarch Al (Paul Bettany) and mother Rose (Kelly Reilly) purchasing their new home, post-World War II. They raise their family, including three children, the oldest Richard (Tom Hanks), finding his own love of art within the living room. Richard meets and marries Margaret (Robin Wright) and they have their own family, struggles, dreams, and thoughts about staying in the home for the decades that follow.
Meanwhile, Zemeckis cuts to other families across time including Stella (Ophelia Lovibond) and her husband Leo (David Fynn), who would go on to create a recliner sold ‘round the world. Aviator (Gwilym Lee) and his Suffragette wife Pauline (Michelle Dockery) have their troubles documented during the Spanish Flu. The houses outside reflect the change of the times, even as far back as being land once owned by Ben Franklin’s son (Daniel Betts) and as far forward as the COVID pandemic with Devon (Nicolas Pinnock) and Helen (Nikki Amuka-Bird).
The living room in particular is the true main character of this movie, having seen and lived through a lot of good and bad times. The main focus is the Young family, and their own family drama anchors the movie, being cut back consistently between the eras to show that every family will sometimes deal with the same things, different time periods.
Personally, I think this film is so manipulative it’s insane. There’s an entire COVID moment that feels like it just had to have been there for the sake of the audience knowing the years. There’s an Alzheimer’s storyline that makes you emotionally invested when in reality, you didn’t need that because it served zero purpose. Finally, it’s just a downright depressing film. Nowhere did I feel genuinely happy about what I was seeing and felt this was a straight through genre film that wanted to have bits of levity, but was too serious in tone.
Now for the really ugly part. The visuals of this movie STINK. Zemeckis has been tinkering with visuals since 2004s The Polar Express and even as far back as Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Look, those are two incredible examples of new technology working in the movie’s favor. Everything Here wants to have for its visuals have been written for it, and yet it’s so bad, that one small insignificant clip of the room had me questioning if anything other than the actors on screen was actually real. The de-aging effect on Hanks in particular scared me because that has worked well on other features, and suffers greatly here. That’s the power of AI I guess! Me seeing a reunion of Hanks and Wright on screen doesn’t make up for having to see them “young.”
The thought process behind this story is there, I get that. It’s a very unique story that works if done well, but the consistent jumping and emotional toll its meant to have on its audience just doesn’t do it for me. I hated looking at a lot of it and was sad to see Zemeckis not having a moment with such a good reunion. In thinking even more about this film, maybe it would have worked as an animated feature, something Zemeckis tinkered with and (for better or worse) works. Maybe that’s all we needed, here.
Christian Ramos is a classic film fan, having had the dream to host Turner Classic Movies for years now. He also has a large amount of Oscar trivia in his head, remembers dressing as Groucho Marx one Halloween, and cherishes the moment Julianne Moore liked his tweet.
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