It was just yesterday we learned Robert Zemeckis was taking another ambitious formal gamble in his career with Here. His adaptation of Richard McGuire’s comic, which spans a single space from 500,957,406,073 BCE to the year 22,175 CE, was shot from a single POV, without movement or zooms. A Forrest Gump reunion between Zemeckis, Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, and writer Eric Roth, the first trailer has now arrived ahead of a November 15 release. Call it his The Tree of Life, Wavelength, or Tsai Ming-liang film, but it’s fascinating to see a director take this approach on a wide studio release.
Here’s the synopsis: “From the reunited director, writer, and stars of Forrest Gump, Here is an original film about multiple families and a special place they inhabit. The story travels through generations, capturing the human experience in its purest form. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, screenplay by Eric Roth & Zemeckis and told much in the style of the acclaimed graphic novel by Richard McGuire on which it is based, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright star in a tale of love, loss, laughter and life, all of which happen right Here.”
“I’ve always been, for some reason, labeled as this visual effects guy. But those were always there to serve as the character arc,” Zemeckis told Vanity Fair. “There’s always been a restlessness in trying. I’ve always thought that our job as filmmakers is to show the audience things that they don’t see in real life.” He adds of the deaging technology, “It only works because the performances are so good. Both Tom and Robin understood instantly that, ‘Okay, we have to go back and channel what we were like 50 years ago or 40 years ago, and we have to bring that energy, that kind of posture, and even raise our voices higher. That kind of thing.”
Watch the trailer below.