Robert Zemeckis often produces movies at the fore-front of technology (Back to the Future (1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Forrest Gump (1994), Contact (1997), The Polar Express (2004)). The Chicago native returned to his hometown for closing night of the 60th Chicago International Film Festival with “Here.” “Here” is also cinematically ground-breaking. Since the entire film is shot in the same living room from a single camera angle in the home of Alan and Rose Young (Rose and Al were the real first names of Zemeckis’ parents on the South side of Chicago), it is a multi-generational look at the Young family. Richard (Tom Hanks) and Margaret (Robin Wright), the reunited stars of Forrest Gump (1994), are the primary couple followed in the most depth.

A.I. DE-AGING

The A.I. de-aging (Metaphysic A.I.) really works well here. There were complaints when I first saw it used in Scorsese’s “The Irishman” in 2019. I heard none after “Here,” 5 years later.  Zemeckis at age 72, with a career that began in 1972, has 35 films as director, nearly as many as writer, and 55 as producer.  Other directors who started out in Chicago with their first films include Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Taylor Hackford and William Friedkin. Zemeckis is in storied company and this is another classic cinematic achievement in his long career.

ONE ROOM

The set of Robert Zemeckis’ “Here.”

“Here” is shot in one room from one camera angle. That sounds like a play, but picture-frame-like boxes are super-imposed on the screen at various points to depict other families in other eras who have lived in the same house. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Eric Roth and Zemeckis and told much in the style of the acclaimed graphic novel by Richard McGuire on which it is based, the story travels through generations.  Tom Hanks and Robin Wright are the primary stars of this tale of love, loss, laughter and life, all of which happen right “Here.” Because the camera is in one spot, at times the actors walk towards it  like we might see television hosts on late-night talk shows walk up to the camera. It’s new and original. Like the split-screen technique (which I remember in 1968’s “The Boston Strangler” with Tony Curtis, although it was first used in “The Parent Trap” by Disney in 1961), I wouldn’t want to see every single film done this way, but when something works, it works. With Zemeckis at the helm, it worked in “Here.”

FOUNDERS AWARD

Director Robert Zemeckis (L) accepts the Founders’ Award from Michael Kutza (R), retired founder of the Chicago International Film Festival.

Zemeckis received the Founders’ Award from retired Chicago International Film Founder Michael Kutza, who started the festival in 1964. The award correctly applauded Zemeckis for his “impeccably crafted and deeply moving stories,” which includes the five mentioned above, as well as “Castaway,” “Flight,” “What Lies Beneath,” “Romancing the Stone” and a host of others. Zemeckis has directed three films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant: Back to the Future (1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Forrest Gump (1994).

DESCRIBING “HERE’S” UNIQUE STYLE

In presenting Zemeckis with the Founders’ Award, Michael Kutza declared “Here” to be Zemeckis’ “Lawrence of Arabia.” If that accolade doesn’t resonate with you, consider that the unusual original use of a picture-frame-like box, insert atop the screen highlights everything from the dinosaur age to the present, which keeps the audience from getting the sense of claustrophobia that some of us experienced in 2022’s “The Whale,” when Brendan Fraser’s character never left his living room. The boxed skipping to various  generations prevents that. It also highlights, briefly, other families who have lived in the same house all the way back to the time of Benjamin Franklin. It is a little like thumbing through a photo book and recalling the moment in time when each was taken, or turning on the radio to hear a favorite tune that instantly takes you back to a specific time in your life.

The choice of moments to guide the audience was spot-on. We see the Three Stooges and Red Skelton on the living room television set.  Jane Fonda is seen doing aerobics.  The “Theme from a Summer Place” saturated the air waves in 1963. Margaret is wearing the “flip” hair-do when Richard takes her home to meet his parents, a 60s give-away. The news on the television set in the background tells us that the Japanese just bombed Pearl Harbor. Thanksgivings of yesteryear are revisited and there is even drama in the living room, from characters having medical emergencies, as there would be in a home occupied all the way back to Indian days in America. Out the picture window and across the street is a house where Benjamin Franklin once lived, so we can infer that this is Philadelphia.  That East coast location is further borne out by the snow that periodically falls outside the window, most memorably during Richard’s apology to Margaret for basically ignoring her throughout their marriage. Zemeckis has said, “You can examine the truth about something that happened in the past, because you’ve been able to look at it through the prism of time.” And that is what “Here” is doing.

MUSIC

(L to R) Director Robert Zemeckis, CIFF founder Michael Kutza, Lesley Zemeckis and Zsa Zsa Zemeckis, at the closing night of the 60th Chicago International Film Festival screening of “Here.”

Alan Silvestri has worked on every Zemeckis film since “Romancing the Stone,” a 40-year partnership. The music in “Here” is wonderful and adds immeasurably to the film’s appeal. It is, once-again, Oscar-worthy. Silvestri has had 2 Oscar nominations (for Zemecki’s “Forrest Gump” in 1994 and for “The Polar Express” in 2004), 2 Golden Globe nominations, 3 Grammy and 2 Emmys. Silvestri at 74 and Zemeckis at 72  utilize their maturity in this film. They have lived life and can relate to the young wife or husband whose youthful dreams are dashed as real life happens while they’re making other plans.

THEMES

The life experiences of Richard and Margaret serve as a stand-in for those of us in the audience. Richard is a talented artist. In his youth, he wanted to attend school to become a graphic design artist. Instead, Margaret gets pregnant and Richard ends up selling insurance. Later, Margaret will ask Richard why he quit painting. He answers, “I had to make a living…Do you think I wanted to be done with my life when I was 22?”

Margaret always wanted to travel. She also wanted her own house, but ends up having to settle for living with her in-laws for many years. As old age takes its toll on Al and Rose,  Richard and Margaret are called upon to help them, as family does.  Any time Margaret brings up her desire for a house of her own, Richard will say that it is too expensive, to the point that Margaret eventually goes to work.  To his credit, Richard does draw up house plans once, but, like everything else, those plans are pushed aside until later. As the script says, “You always find a reason not to do something.”

Richard will ultimately apologize for ignoring Margaret’s desires so many times over the years. (This was the second film at CIFF where husbands apologize to the wives they habitually ignored; the first was “Nightbitch.”) Among the truisms that will be articulated by a character or characters in the film are “Time flies” and “We did the best we could.” Satisfaction that their children are realizing their own dreams comes through in the voices of the proud parents when Vanessa (played by Zsa Zsa Zemeckis, Zemeckis’ real-life daughter) goes to law school and becomes an attorney.

CONCLUSION

Director Robert Zemeckis with his Founders’ Award at the closing night of the 60th Chicago International Film Festival on October 27, 2024.

In 2007 “Entertainment Weekly” magazine named Robert (Bob) Zemeckis Number 18 on its list of “the smartest people in Hollywood.” From his first start (with co-writer and collaborator Bob Gale) when they sold an episode of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Chopper (#1.15) in 1975, Zemeckis has experimented with digital movie-making (“The Polar Express,” 2004) saying, “I just love all types of movies, but I was especially interested in digital cinema. I was interested in films that could be done in digital.” On October 25, 2012, when Zemeckis came to Chicago to screen “Flight” (his 2nd showing in Chicago) he said, “All film techniques should disappear and be there to serve the characters and the story.”

Zemeckis has well-served the characters and the story in “Here” with this new film technique. The picture-frame technique and the improved de-aging were original, unique never-seen-before methods to create another iconic Zemeckis film. Miramax releases “Here” on November 1, 2024. It should attract fans of “Forrest Gump” and all other classic Zemeckis films.