When I was nine years old, my dad told me our family was moving.  I did not take this news well.  In this tiny subdivision of unincorporated West Chicago was my entire world, three plus blocks that raised me, a yard that could incorporate my entire imagination.  When he gave me this news, I ran outside, sat by a nearby creek, and cried.  Whenever I visit the land of my birth and drive through my old neighborhood passing by that spot, I think of that day.  I recall the house that used to be in that location, the games I used to play in the surrounding yards, the girl I first kissed.  I think to myself this all happened Here, or there, more accurately.  My apologies for any confusion.  I was trying to find a clever way of working the title of today’s film into this introduction.  I am seeking wittiness because it deserves my best descriptive powers.  If you read what other critics have to say about it, you will get some praise for its inventive presentation, but more demerits for being “cloying” in its sweetness.  If you are like me and have a heart, you will find a story that will likely move you as it did me.

Having set myself up for saying positive things about Here, it should also be mentioned that it is a tricky film to describe. It has a non-linear plot, which, as has been documented here on The Legionnaire, is not my favorite method of storytelling.  As such, I will have to vary my own approach to this synopsis.  The first thing that must be understood is that the title says virtually everything you need to know about the movie.  In this place, which is somewhere in Pennsylvania, things happened.  Beginning with the time of the dinosaurs all the way up until the present day, the camera rests on one spot.  In fact, the only time it moves from its frame of where a living room will be in an upper-middle class house is to swivel towards the rarely seen kitchen just before backing out of the house and into the end credits.  Between the Triassic Era and 2024, there are a few stops.  We see native peoples living their lives, colonization, Benjamin Franklin’s (Keith Bartlett) son, William Franklin (Daniel Betts), building a comfortable home, and then a neighborhood is filled in around it.  Not long after the house’s construction, airplane enthusiast John Harter (Gwilym Lee) occupies it with his wife (Michelle Dockery) and daughter.  Later, it is inventor Lee Beekman (David Fynn), who is credited with the invention of the La-Z-Boy recliner, and his wife Stella Beekman (Ophelia Lovibond).  Skipping over the next inhabitants for a moment, we get the most recent occupants, the Harris family.  Each of these groups are given their own stories to tell within these walls, but the ones focused on the most are two generations of the Young family.  The first of these are the newlyweds, Al (Paul Bettany) and Rose Young (Kelly Reilly).  Al is recently returned from service in World War II.  As these things happens, their family grows.  Richard “Ricky” Young (Tom Hanks) is their first born, and there are a number of actors that play more youthful versions of him throughout the years, but they need not all be enumerated.  The same can be said for other characters, meaning I will be giving you the actors and actresses who played their adult versions.  Before Ricky graduates from high school, he brings home his girlfriend, Margaret (Robin Wright).  They do the kinds of things against which the Catholic Church reasonably warns, namely pre-marital sex, which leads to the conception of their daughter, Vanessa (Zsa Zsa Zemeckis).  Because Margaret and Ricky are so young, they move in with the rest of the Young family.  Ricky has dreams of pursuing a career in art, but gives it up shortly following his marriage and Vanessa’s arrival.  The same can be said of Margaret, who had wanted to be a lawyer.  It is Ricky, though, who becomes the more cautious of the two.  Each time some big event happens, like Rose having a stroke and needing nursing care, Margaret makes the suggestion that they need to get their own space.  At every turn, Ricky has an excuse for why this is not acceptable, mainly pertaining to the economy or taxes, or both.  Further, when he finally agrees to the move, even drawing up plans for a potential new house, he does not get the prerequisite job needed to make their dreams a reality. Eventually, not long after Vanessa goes to college, Al has to come to stay with them following Rose finally passing and him having an accident that leaves him bed ridden.  This is the final straw for Margaret, who leaves Ricky to rent an apartment and do all the things she had wanted to do but felt constrained by Ricky.  They are brought back together one Thanksgiving with Vanessa and the rest of their family all with separate engagement for the holiday.  By this point, it is becoming evident that Margaret is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease, not remembering where she had been going with the food she bought.  Despite his attempts at winning her back, she still refuses.  Yet, when it appears that her disease has fully advanced, he becomes her primary caregiver.  With this, coming back to the actual beginning of the film, Ricky brings Margaret into the living room to see if she can remember anything, closing with one memory of Vanessa.

As a Catholic film reviewer, I appreciate that the last thing that comes to mind for Margaret is being Here with her daughter.  The specific moment referred to is when, as a little girl, Vanessa claims to have lost her blue ribbon given as an award from school.  She is clearly upset over its apparent disappearance, and when it is found, she calls it a miracle.  The young girl adds that it is the result of her prayers being answered.  To that I say amen, but it is just one of a few moments on which the movie lingers in order to give you a sense of a life (or lives) lived.  This is not a Catholic movie, nor are the characters practicing the Faith.  An example of the lack of care they give to this matter is Margaret and Ricky’s wedding.  There is nothing in the Catechism that says a woman who has already conceived cannot be wedded in the Church.  A Catholic wedding is to happen in a church, not a living room.  At the same time, even if they were committed Catholics, it is the constrains of the way in which the film is shot that is to blame for some of these issues.  I applaud director Robert Zemeckis for his bold new vision of presenting this story.  Even if I do not care for the lack of a properly ordered chronology, the person behind such classics as the Back to the Future trilogy and Forrest Gump (1994) gives us a unique look into several lives.  The other pundits can claim the film is too rosy, but it is actually relatable.  To accomplish something storytelling-wise into which we can almost literally interject our own experiences, the place, the “Here” in other words, becomes the star.  It is a blank slate onto which generations have briefly made their mark, only to move out and have another set of people lending the space their character.  This is not unlike what God does for us when we participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  We bring everything we have done for a certain amount of time into a space, the Confessional, relive it in our Confession, and are given absolution.

While the constantly changing Here can serve as a theme for the film, my Catholic interpretation is likely not what Zemeckis intended.  However, there are a few more solidly Catholic moments.  There is the aforementioned miraculous finding of Vanessa’s ribbon.  Vanessa directly credits her prayers for its recovery as for how it is found.  What would have clinched the Catholic-ness of the moment is if she admitted to asking for St. Anthony of Padua’s intercession, the patron saint of lost items.  There is another vignette when Lee and Stella briefly discuss a Father Murphy, but we never see said priest and it is done in a scandalous manner.  Instead, what I would rather focus on is when Al is confronted by Rose having a stroke.  His normal response, being an alcoholic, is to use liquor to cope.  At this particular hour, he instead turns to God, saying that he needs help and that he does not have the strength to deal with what has happened.  These two admissions are crucial to anyone in their spiritual growth.  To believe that we can do everything on our own is a sin of pride.  It is an easy one to slip into, too, since God gives us some pretty incredible gifts to handle almost every situation.  I, for one, cannot say that I am innocent of this, being much too indulgent of my mental and physical abilities.  God has been good to me, but it also must be remembered that what we have is from God.  We would be nothing without Him, we are nothing without Him, and we will be nothing without Him.  For those of us who rely too much on what we can accomplish without assistance, asking for it is far from our minds.  What I am describing here can be applied to Al.  At one point, with Margaret and Ricky trying to take a picture of Vanessa as a toddler, Al yells at the parents for being too soft on their daughter who is slow to obey their requests to sit still.  Yet, when he asks God for help, from that time on he gives up drinking and behaves in a more Christian fashion towards his family.  It underscores the fact that all things are possible with God.

There is not a ton that goes on Here, and largely I am okay with it.  I think critics panned it because of this fact.  Instead, like the picture window framing the background of the one scene, what we get is one window into many souls.  They may be mundane, but they are beautiful because they are created by God.  For this reason, I came away from it crying like I did that day as a child when I was told I would be leaving the only home I had ever known.  This is also why I recommend the film.