Venture into the heart of Rome, Italy's ancient capital, as we journey to Southern Europe for the new movie Here After (2024), one that explores grief, the complex intersections of faith and fear, and the deep influence of Catholicism. While it feels frustratingly dull at times, the movie does manage to build toward a powerful finale, offering enough payoff to make the experience somewhat worthwhile.
Meet Claire Hiller (Connie Britton), an American adrift in Rome’s ancient embrace, a single mother and divorcée pouring her heart into teaching English at a stern, all-girls Catholic school. Her daughter, Robin (Freya Hannan-Mills), a piano prodigy and student who treads the same sacred halls, carries a silent burden. Robin’s voice is locked away, not by illness but by a deep, psychic wound, a scar from past trauma that silences her, leaving only her music to cry out.
Everything shatters when Robin’s life is snuffed out in a brutal accident, her pulse flatlining on a sterile hospital gurney. She’s pronounced dead until, 20 minutes later, she gasps back to life, her eyes wide with a clarity untouched by brain damage, defying every medical textbook.
It doesn’t take long to realize that whatever Robin brought back with her, it’s not just clarity; it’s transformation. Once trapped in silence by affliction, she now speaks with ease, her voice no longer stilled. For her mother Claire, the miracle of having her daughter whole again quickly curdles into unease, as Robin’s sweetness begins to sour, giving way to a demeanor that’s unfamiliar… and unsettling.
It’s a familiar setup with someone returning from the other side but no longer quite the same. The movie leans heavily on its drama-driven approach, so don’t expect the intense thrills or fierce storytelling we typically associate with horror. Instead, it settles for a quieter, less gripping exploration of its premise.
The plot drifts into a sea of uneventful moments, offering little for the audience to cling to. The strained relationship between Claire and Robin is explored, but it often feels like a slow-burning exercise in frustration. Claire's character seems trapped in a holding pattern, doing little more than exist in scenes that feel more like filler than pivotal development. As a result, Robin’s story stalls, and the tension begins to fade, leaving the situation feeling painfully stagnant, like waiting for a storm that never comes.
The movie gradually begins to pick up steam in the second half as the mother-daughter duo takes a step back, finding new energy as Claire takes center stage. She plunges deeper into a spiral of fear and faith, and in classic Catholic horror fashion, becomes convinced that an exorcism may be the only way to save her daughter’s soul.
If you've stuck around this long, don’t give up just yet, there’s a spark ahead. When Claire stumbles into a support group steeped in tales of death and near-death brushes, she crosses paths with the enigmatic Dr. Ben (Tommaso Basili), and the movie finally ignites into a saga we’d been craving all along. Gone is Robin’s petulant behavior and Claire’s fleeting, half-baked hallucinations; in their place, a pulse-quickening narrative surges forward, brimming with purpose.
As the story unfolds, we begin to peel back the layers of Claire’s past, uncovering the shared trauma between her and Robin. Things start to click into place, setting the stage for a dramatic turn. The movie truly finds its stride in the final act, where emotional stakes are raised, and Claire is pushed to her limits. Choices are made that pull us into an intense emotional journey, as the past, present, and future collide in a powerful and moving conclusion. It's unfortunate that the movie couldn’t find its rhythm sooner, as it could have easily earned a much stronger rating.