Clint Eastwood’s insightful and shockingly original film, “Hereafter,” will have you questioning your own ideas about the afterlife long before the credits roll.

The film is expressed with a quality that would rival any independent film, but it is also executed with a class that usually signifies a studio film.

Most films either have the commercialized, big budget larger-than-life feel, or they have the ultra realistic, low budget artistic feel. “Hereafter” meshes these two types of films so well that it might be time to create a new genre.

Matt Damon (The “Bourne” Trilogy) stars in the film as one of the three main protagonists, along with Cecile de France (“Around the World in Eighty Days”) and twins Frankie and George McLaren, appearing in their first film.

Damon plays a psychic named George who has a legitimate gift after a complicated surgery in which he died multiple times on the operating table.

He struggles with his gift because of a lack of relationships the gift allows him to have, and this provides his main motivation.

France plays a famous French television talent who experiences a massive trauma at the beginning of the film, causing her to seek out answers concerning the afterlife. Her story takes her on an almost quest-like journey that culminates in her wanting to write about her experience.

The twins play a pair of very self-reliant boys who are to be taken away by child protective services because of their drunk and drug-addicted mother.

The mother is not portrayed as violent or abusive in any physical way, and it seems as though she does care about her boys, but her own addiction seems to void any actual caretaking abilities. This forces the boys to take care of themselves.

Tragedy strikes and one of the twins seeks answers to the hereafter.

Interestingly, even though the boy and the talent are seeking similar things, they go through it differently.

The talent has the money and resources to do a thorough investigation, but the boy does what we would do… search it online.

Though all three journeys eventually come to a climactic point, the ways in which each story gets there are completely independent of anything else happening in the film, making it a marvel to watch.

I would recommend this film to anyone who wants to witness a very original and dramatic telling that questions his or her own ideas and thoughts about the hereafter.

If, however, you are not looking for something that deep, then I highly suggest a different film.

The hereafter transcends to a different plane of existence of film — one that blurs the lines between genres.

You can contact Patrick St. Pierre at [email protected].