Here * * * *

Tom, smile, it's a wonderful life.

This film is as sentimental as a Hallmark Greeting Card.  As sweet as a Frank Capra movie. At times it's like a Norman Rockwell painting,  but it's good!

I knew it starred Tom Hanks (but don't half the film that come out of USA?), and that it's directed by Robert Zemeckis (always remembered for Back To The Future and not much else), but that's about all I knew about it.  

Anyway I was rather fascinated by the style of direction and editing.  Never seen anything like it.  Basically windows and portals keep popping up on the screen taking us to another time,. but always the same place - which is "Here".  

"Here" is a suburban house, populated by several families over a hundred odd years.  Prior to the house being built, we go back to the times when the native Americans lived there, and before that even the dinosaurs.  Same patch of land.

In the time since the house was built there are only a few families that lived the home, but we get to know each one, an aviator and his wife, a wonderfully eccentric inventor and his bohemian wife, a  young service man, and his off spring and finally another young black family.  We also get to know a young indigenous couple who lived on the land before the house was built.  

What I discovered after viewing it is that Here is actually based on a graphic novel that uses the same technique of windows and portals opening up. 

Apparently it's not doing real well with the critics, but for me, Here worked.