In 2010, film buffs everywhere were universally stunned when an eagerly-awaited, fantasy-drama collaboration between Matt Damon and Clint Eastwood fell flat on its face upon release, receiving only middling reviews mixed with the occasional scathing criticism. But over a decade later, Hereafter is making a surprising comeback, rising from the dead to earn the fourth spot on Max’s streaming charts this week.
Initially authored by Rush writer Peter Morgan, Hereafter was directed, produced, and even scored by Eastwood, with Damon playing one of the protagonists. The film follows three characters in total: George Lonegan, an American factory worker who reluctantly communicates with the dead; Marie Lelay, a French journalist who survives a near-death experience; and British schoolboy Marcus, who has just lost the person closest to him. Due to their tumultuous and often traumatic relationship with death, all three characters struggle to find meaning in life, and are eventually drawn to help each other when the rest of the world leaves them behind.
When discussing what drew him to the script of Hereafter, Eastwood stated that he felt like the film’s supernatural aspects were unexplored territory in his journey as a director and producer. But he also appreciated Hereafter’s more grounded elements — for example, Marie Lelay’s near-death experience in the movie was a result of the 2004 Indian tsunami, which actually caused Hereafter to be pulled early from Japanese cinemas, due to the combined earthquake and tsunami that swept the country in March 2011. However, it seems Eastwood’s favorite part of Hereafter’s story was an attempt to make sense of one of life’s biggest mysteries: death. “There’s a certain charlatan aspect to the hereafter,” Eastwood explained, “to those who prey on people’s beliefs that there’s some afterlife, and mankind doesn’t seem to be willing to accept that this is your life and you should do the best you can with it and enjoy it while you’re here, and that’ll be enough. There has to be immortality or eternal life and embracing some religious thing. I don’t have the answer.”
This perspective may be why Eastwood chose to keep the script’s original, somewhat anti-climactic ending, rather than use Morgan’s much grander rewrite, which was prompted by criticism from Hereafter’s executive producer, Steven Spielberg.
Maybe there is a hereafter, but I don’t know, so I approach it by not knowing. I just tell the story.
What Went Wrong With ‘Hereafter?’
Despite an evocative, intriguing premise, and a powerhouse duo at the helm, Hereafter was largely a critical disaster. It scored just 48% on Rotten Tomatoes, with many critics agreeing that the film didn’t have the emotional punch that it tried to promise. “The direction is utterly bland,” reported Deborah Ross from The Spectator. “The film doesn’t care about its own subject matter, or have anything to say about it.” Others criticized a lack of action or excitement, stating that the performances in Hereafter simply didn’t capture their attention. However, these overwhelmingly negative reactions are joined by the occasional rave review. While some audiences disliked Eastwood’s inconclusive, delicate approach to the topic of death, others felt like it was a perfect representation of human fragility and our curiosity about the unknown. Or, as David Ansen of Newsweek stated, “Hereafter confronts a topic that could have descended into mawkish, mystical hokum, but not in Eastwood’s no-nonsense, uncynical hands. He looks at death, and beyond, with clear, open, inquisitive eyes.”
Of course, it’s also possible that the world was simply not receptive to the slow beauty of Hereafter in 2010. Those were the early days of what would become the MCU empire, after all, with a plethora of superhero films promising snappy dialogue and nonstop action. But in 2025, audiences are looking for something beyond Disney’s oversaturated, excessively CGI’d dominance. In a world where emotional resonance is often put on the back burner — and where hope seems increasingly difficult to come by — perhaps it’s unsurprising that a quiet story of humanity and spirituality is topping the streaming charts.