Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks have a history of making some pretty good movie magic together. 1994’s “Forrest Gump” won six Academy Awards. 2000’s “Cast Away” remains a personal favorite of mine. 2004’s “The Polar Express” has become a perennial Christmas classic for many. And regardless of what my film critic colleagues say, 2022’s live-action “Pinocchio” had more than enough heart, charm, and creative vision to “justify its existence”.

Now Zemeckis and Hanks team up for the fifth time with “Here”, a warm-hearted drama built around a gutsy high-concept idea that works in more ways than it doesn’t. The film is based on a six-page comic strip by Richard McGuire that was published in 1989 and turned into a graphic novel in 2014. Written for the screen by fellow Oscar winners Zemeckis and Eric Roth, “Here” is a bold and ambitious adaptation that may not reach the full potential of its concept, but that swings for the fences nevertheless, challenging cinematic norms and touching our souls along the way.

A part of me wonders if we’ve grown too cynical and jaded for a movie like “Here”. Not so much for its technical conceit, but for its earnest and open-hearted vision. There’s little resembling a cohesive plot. Instead “Here” functions as a thematically rich experience you absorb and relate to. It can be sweet and unashamedly sentimental. But it’s also honest and straightforward with its intentions.

With “Here”, Zemeckis presents a multi-generational saga that explores the various phases of life, the persistence of time, the immeasurable value of family, and the power of unfailing love in light of our human fallibility. And it all unfolds through the lens of a single static camera with a fixed point-of-view, set upon one small parcel of New England land. As the camera sits stationary for the duration of the film, centuries of life play out before our eyes, most involving a single family and the colonial house they share.

“Here” takes a non-linear approach to storytelling, artfully moving us back-and-forth to different points on the timeline while telling several stories along the way. We see the house being built in 1911 and meet the first of several generations of residents, an aviation enthusiast (Gwilym Lee) and his disapproving wife (Michelle Dockery). A little later it’s occupied by an easygoing inventor (David Flynn) and his high-energy wife (Ophelia Lovibond). And in our current day, it’s a young couple (Nikki Amuka-Bird and Nicholas Pinnock) and their teenage son (Cache Vanderpuye). We also get (briefly), dinosaurs, Native Americans, and Ben Franklin.

But the bulk of its time follows the Young family. In 1943, Al (Paul Bettany) and his wife Rose (Kelly Reilly) buy the house after he returns from World War II. Al is a heavy drinker and struggles with PTSD. But he’s a hard worker who desperately wants to provide for his family. Meanwhile Rose proves to be the home’s stabilizing force. They go on to raise three kids in the house, one of them being Richard (Tom Hanks), the film’s most prominent character.

Richard meets and falls for Margaret (fellow “Forrest Gump” alum Robin Wright) who he brings home to meet his family. Later, after discovering Margaret is pregnant, the two get married and end up living with Al and Rose. Before long their daughter Vanessa is born. From there we follow the ebb and flow of the Young family’s life playing out in their living room. And similar to the bustling world outside of their big bay window, there’s a lot of beauty, chaos, and change to behold.

As Zemeckis plays hopscotch across his timeline, he uses a variety of young performers and digital de-aging technology to follow his characters through various stages of their lives. The effects work can occasionally be jarring, but it’s often mind-blowing. Meanwhile the evocative score from Alan Silvestri (yet another “Forrest Gump” alum) is teeming with warmth yet with an ache that’s befitting of the realities being explored.

“Here” is an experiment for you to sit back and emotionally savor as it chronicles the circle of life with all of its joy, sorrow, and bittersweetness. It’s not a movie custom-made for social media buzz. It doesn’t milk the celebrity status of hot young stars. It doesn’t cater to any edgy popular trend. It’s simply a movie about life where we watch significant events unfold on screen that distinctly relate to our own real-world experiences. It’s all conveyed through amazing visual craft and a cast putting every bit of themselves into realizing a powerful shared vision. “Here” is in theaters now.

VERDICT – 4 STARS