Whatever gets you through your life ,'salright, 'salright.

Do it wrong or do it right, 'salright, 'salright

Don't need a watch to waste your time, oh no, oh no.

— John Lennon

In “Hereafter,” Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial outing, three characters explore the impact of death — or near-death — on their lives. George Lonegan (Matt Damon) is a construction worker who, thanks to a brain trauma suffered early in his life. possesses mediumistic abilities — or at least, believes he does. Marie LeLay (Cécile de France) is a French television journalist who, accidentally caught up in a tsunami tidal wave, suffers a near-death experience. And a London schoolboy, Jason, is killed in an accident, leaving his surviving twin brother Marcus (the boys are played interchangeably by both George and Frankie McLaren), to try to survive on his own.

“Hereafter” is Eastwood’s 31^st directorial outing; averaging the remarkable output of one film per year since his directorial debut in 1971 with “Play Misty For Me.” Eastwood has not only turned out to be America’s longest-lasting movie star (although he claims to have retired from acting after “Gran Torino”), but since the Oscar-winning “Unforgiven” in 1992, has steadily achieved standing among the elite of our greatest living cinema auteurs, alongside the likes of Martin Scorcese.

Just in the past seven years alone, Eastwood has created a remarkable list of powerful works including “Mystic River,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “Flags of Our Fathers,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” and “Gran Torino.” An oeuvre of this caliber demands his work be taken seriously, and thus it was with great interest that I approached “Hereafter,” a film addressing subjects fundamental to the human condition, as well as some of particular interest to me.

As each of three story lines unfold — destined to eventually converge — each character is suddenly faced with the impact of a deadly experience. The reporter, Marie’s, near-death experience in the tsunami irretrievably alters the path of her life, as she becomes fascinated with the implications of her experience, investigating evidence of an afterlife. Young Marcus, intimately dependant on his twin brother, does not know how to live his life without him, and compulsively pursues a catalog of psychics in order to restore contact with Jason. And George, the working-class psychic, who resists his marketeer brother’s attempt to cash in on George’s apparent psychic abilities, considers his “gift” a burden, a painful obstacle to having a normal life, or developing a healthy intimate relationship.

“Hereafter” deals more in questions than in answers, which some viewers – or perhaps many – will doubtless find unsatisfying. While the characters are consumed with the afterlife, the film distinctly presents a point of view that focuses on the importance of  the “here” and “after” of death, rather than the so-called afterlife. When it comes to questions, Eastwood, along with screenwriter Peter Morgan (“Frost/Nixon”), decline taking a stand on the existence of an afterlife. Rather, they make it clear that death requires that, eventually, the living embrace life.

While the point may read as banal, we humans are accustomed to witnessing the painful learning and re-learning of that lesson in our own lives and the lives of friends and loved ones forced to confront the painful realities of death. “Hereafter” is a gentle and compassionate contemplation on these themes, neither strident nor certain about the issues its characters encounter.

Being human, and having confronted deaths of friends and family, I am sympathetic toward Eastwood’s gentle handling of the nature of bereavement. As certain as I may be in my agreement with the character of Didier (Thierry Neuvic), the reporter’s TV producer boyfriend, that death is the “eternal nothing,” it is difficult to too harshly judge our fellows who find it intolerable to face death without wishing for an alternative.

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a clearly rational and accomplished woman, an engineer by training, whose husband of twenty years died in a tragic freak accident a scant two years ago. Brought up in a culture that embraces spiritual notions of the afterlife, she admitted to me that she turned to a psychic in her need, unable to face another day with her children without some sense of contact with her dead husband. The psychic gave her the comfort she sought in a simple message of love.

Yet after a time, she recognized that she did not need the psychic to tell her things she already knew: namely, that her husband had loved her. And that, in fact, she was not truly convinced that there was any afterlife, or that the psychic was talking to her husband within it; she knew, pressing herself to answer the question, that she was choosing to comfort herself with a belief in which she was less than convinced.

Her self-aware perspective might seem rare in a debate often dominated by certainties, be they borne of perspectives scientific or religious. But given the uncertainties humans have carried with them at least since Neanderthals began burying their dead with food and tools, perhaps in the hope they would be of use in an afterlife, this woman’s internal conflicts are far from uncommon. And “Hereafter” seems to take a similarly humanistic (if not necessarily humanist) stance, to wit: Believe what you will if it gets you through the night, but when you get up in the morning, face the day and live your life.

And so, while I am sympathetic to some of the perspective “Hereafter” offers, I must also admit to being troubled by some of its specific sympathies. If anything, I am more offended by the portrayal of the reporter and her investigations than I am by that of the psychic. In one of the film’s most frustrating moments for this viewer, a scientist who describes herself as an atheist (or perhaps a former one) insists that cultural variations in near-death experience is somehow evidence in favor of spirituality, when in fact it should be obvious that if a Catholic sees a saint and a Satanist meets the devil, the scientific explanation for the universality of a common neurophysiological experience rather than a supernatural one makes unarguable sense.

As to the subject of psychics, young Marcus encounters the standard catalog of deceivers and self-deceivers alike, as the film’s seeming acknowledgement that there is no shortage of con artists and fools in that murky world. When it comes to the character of George, however, the filmmakers are more circumspect. Is George the real thing? He has a few moments of uncanny perception, but is it enough to prove to us his genuine abilities? Probably not – but it is enough to prove that he is sincere in his beliefs. And as such, he probably shares much in common with the majority of amateur psychics and mediums.

That the issue of George’s psychic legitimacy is not absolutely resolved does not trouble me however as much as the film’s failure to address the real human costs and tragedies of belief in psychics and the dangers of some of its most readily available professional practitioners. The likes of John Edward, Sylvia Brown, and your neighborhood storefront psychic prey on innocent victims of the human condition at their most vulnerable, and do so for obscene personal profit; whether they are self-deceived or self-aware in their deceptions is ultimately irrelevant when judging the costs of such emotional and financial predation. On the other hand, one interesting aspect of Matt Damon’s portrayal of George is that his psychic readings are remarkably restrained, and rendered almost banal in comparison to the genuine drama of natural disasters and terrorist bombs – perhaps another comment on the pointlessness of trying to speak with the dead, even if we could.  Although the filmmakers seem to tilt toward portraying George’s abilities as genuine, the fact that George believes in his own abilities is what is more important and interesting about his character, because it renders his intentions as morally good.

To its credit, “Hereafter” encourages our embrace of life rather than death. And the film seems to present a subtly secular worldview. Our lives are impacted by sudden and random violence at the hands of nature and man alike, which are both equally indiscriminate, whether it be a tsunami or a terrorist bombing. The conclusion would seem to be at least agnostic about the subject of religion, if not outright atheistic, and so reminds us that our choices are our own to make. “Hereafter” is ultimately disappointing however because some of the available choices are concealed from us – including, quite importantly, the truth. The failure to address the true value and comforts of a scientific worldview renders “Hereafter” an incomplete and hence unsatisfying story.

Jamy Ian Swiss is a magician, author, speaker, and longtime skeptical activist. He serves as Chairman of the Advisory Committee to the President of the James Randi Educational Foundation.

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