Shadows on the Wall

Here

dir Robert Zemeckis
scr Eric Roth, Robert Zemeckis
prd Bill Block, Robert Zemeckis, Derek Hogue, Jack Rapke
with Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly, Michelle Dockery, Gwilym Lee, Ophelia Lovibond, David Fynn, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Nicholas Pinnock, Angus Wright, Harry Marcus
release US 1.Nov.24,
UK 17.Jan.25
24/US Miramax 1h44

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Another bold experiment by filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, this film features a camera that is static for millions of years, watching the time flow within a single frame. After a digital prologue begins in the primordial soup, the setting is a house built in 1900 and the people who lived here. Since there isn't an overall plot, it all feels a bit random. But each vignette is beautifully observed.

After the war, Al and Rose (Bettany and Reilly) buy this home to start a family. Their son Richard (Hanks) grows up and meets Margaret (Wright). And they raise their family in this home as well, while Margaret begs for them to get a home of their own. But they stay for decades. Earlier residents include the Harters (Dockery and Lee) in the 1920s and the Beekmans (Lovibond and Flynn) in the 1940s, while the Harrises (Amuka-Bird and Pinnock) live here in the present day. There are also some historical residents before the house existed.

Transitions between time periods are inventively rendered as on-screen windows that reveal various layers of the past, with a steady stream of cultural references. This juxtaposition is artfully done, impressive in the way it weaves themes together over such a large span of time. It's also accompanied by an Alan Silvestri score that ramps up the sentimentality, creating an oddly artificial sense of melodrama. But there are moving moments along the way.

In a film full of gimmicks, the biggest is the way Hanks and Wright play their characters from teens into old age, augmented by impressive digital makeup effects. Because of the fragmented narrative structure, performances sometimes feel rather arch. In the central narrative, Hanks and Wright's scenes are compelling, largely because the script hones in on key moments that are finely played by the ensemble cast. Although the swell of schmaltz often becomes rather distracting.

Of course, with so many time periods, the film touches on several huge issues, most notably the way people dream about the future, and how these dreams are interrupted by real-life events and the rhythms of world history. Births and deaths run in parallel with holidays, inventions, societal shifts and so on. Some of this is far too sharply pointed. More interesting is the look at a decades-long marriage through various highs and lows.

themes, language 13.Jan.25

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