Films: Reunions, AI and the meaning of life

HAVE you ever thought about all the people that have lived before you, that have stepped foot on the very land you walk on? Who else has lived in your home before you moved in? What stood on the site before it was built? What joy, sadness, grief, elation, and wonder the place has held in its millennia of history?

The latest film from Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis, of Back To The Future, Forrest Gump and The Polar Express fame, explores exactly that: the invisible stories held in the air in the spaces we call home.

“I think it’s a fascinating thing to think about lives that have ed, and our current life that is constantly in movement and continuing,” says the 72-year-old director of the central premise of his new film, Here.

Adapted from the graphic novel by Richard McGuire, Here — which stars Forrest Gump’s Tom Hanks and Robin Wright — tells the story of the generations of people who live out their lives in one small location. From prehistoric settlers all the way through to the present day, it shows how change is the only constant in human existence.

“The truth is, yesterday means nothing because there’s nothing we can do to change it, and tomorrow means nothing because there’s no way we can predict what’s going to be,” observes Tom Hanks, aged 68, who plays central character Richard as the story follows his life.

“All we can do is exist in the today.”

“Everything es in life. Everything. Good and bad...” adds Robin Wright, aged 58, who plays Richard’s partner Margaret.

“That’s the only constant in life, right? That everything does change.”

While Wright and Hanks’ philosophies are astute, the film also explores how cyclical existence can be. Though some missed opportunities you may live to regret forever, or some fond memories never get the chance to be repeated, sometimes it’s possible to have another go, though perhaps in a completely different way to the first time around.

A case in point is that Here brings Hanks, Wright, Zemeckis, and screenwriter Eric Roth together for the first time in 30 years, since they made the ground-breaking, award-winning, beloved film Forrest Gump.

“Well, we’ve seen each other so much, and Robin has worked with Bob multiple times, as have I... If you’d gone back to 1994 and said: ‘This is just the first of many’, I don’t think we would have believed it!” says Hanks, who is also known for starring in Saving Private Ryan, Toy Story, and The Green Mile.

“It was something to note as one of the kindly things that can happen in a career that’s marked with any sort of longevity. And then we had to forget it and just get along with the script that was in front of us and the work that was due.”

“It was like no time had ed,” smiles Wright, who won a Golden Globe for her performance in Netflix series House of Cards.

“Didn’t expect anything less than that, because it’s always been like that. And I’ve worked with Bob — this is my fourth time since Forrest Gump, and Tom’s worked with him five times, so we kind of speak the same language.

“It feels so good the older you get, having been in this business almost 40 years, to work with people that you know and you’re on the same plane with.”

Trust and talent were two of the most important characteristics while filming Here, because its central premise relies on a gimmick which could fall apart in the wrong hands.

The film’s recurring motif is the story of Richard, played by Hanks, and his wife Margaret, played by Wright, and we follow their relationship from its inception in their teens to their old age — with the same actors portraying them at every juncture.

This was achieved through cutting-edge visual effects technology which digitally de-ages the actors, using thousands of archival images to make them look a particular age. Crucially, the de-aging happens in real time using generative AI, so cast and director alike can adapt their performances to ensure their body language matches the age displayed on their face in the footage.

“It’s a great tool, because the super computing means you do not have to wait for post production to do the purely technical visual view of it,” says Hanks.

“It was a bit intimidating, because we could see it in real time. Robin and I could do the scenes... and then we could gather around the monitor and see exactly, more or less, how it was going to work... We could see where it was not right, where we were not standing correctly, where we did not have the right posture, how energetic our moves were.”

“Sometimes we had to be 17 years old, sometimes we had to be 77 years old,” he adds.

“And to have that as a tool, so that we were not guessing, we’re not approximating, we were not hoping we were going to land on it, it was a great advantage.”

“We could still do what we do as actors: Change our physicality, the octave in our voice, the way we move our hands — we can act younger, but we don’t look that young, so that’s where this tool is very beneficial,” Wright agrees.

“Because it basically is taking your data, having been ed from interviews that you did when you were 20 years old, and depositing that onto you as you’re acting in the scene.”

Using this technique and employing generative AI was essential to the premise of Here, Zemeckis says. He doesn’t think it “would be effective” to cast younger actors in the younger roles, as is traditionally the case, adding that Hanks’ and Wright’s talent is what “makes the illusion work”.

“I think it would be distracting, and the audience would have to catch up and remind themselves: ‘Oh yes, those are those people again’,” says Zemeckis, when asked ing younger actors instead of AI.

“Because the changes in their lives and their physicality is actually quite subtle, because we watch them age through six or seven decades — it’s not like we make a giant leap from young to old or anything like that...

“It all comes down to their performance. It’s their performance that makes the illusion work.”

Here is in cinemas now.