HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Matt Damon returns to the big screen this weekend in Hereafter, a film directed by Clint Eastwood.
Hereafter tells the story of three people who are haunted by mortality in different ways. George (Damon) is a blue-collar American who has a special connection to the afterlife. On the other side of the world, Marie (Cécile de France), a French journalist, has a near-death experience that shakes her reality. And when Marcus (George McLaren and Frankie McLaren), a London schoolboy, loses the person closest to him, he desperately needs answers. Each on a path in search of the truth, their lives will intersect, forever changed by what they believe might—or must—exist in the hereafter.
"We don't know what's on the other side, but on this side, it's final," says Eastwood. "People have their beliefs about what's there or what's not there, but those are all hypotheticals. Nobody knows until you get there."
"I think we all want to believe that there's something beyond and we're not sure what that might be," adds producer Kathleen Kennedy. "It sounds funny to look at it this way, but I think life is often defined in the face of death."
"Death touches the three characters in this film in ways most people don't experience," says producer Robert Lorenz. "But, in one way or another, we can all relate to the core emotions of the story—love, loss, loneliness and connection. These are things we all experience."
Damon agrees, noting, "The point isn't to sit there and be a lonely nihilist. The point is to reach out to the other people that are here on the planet with you. And I think that's ultimately a very life-affirming message."
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