Hereafter

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring Matt Damon, Cécile de France, Frankie McLaren, George McLaren, Jay Mohr, Bryce Dallas Howard, Marthe Keller 12A cert, gen release, 127 min

DEALING WITH psychics in the movies is a tricky business. Werewolves, vampires and giant flying lizards have, for a few centuries, anyway, been relegated to the fantasy arena. No sane film-maker expects us to believe that such things exist. But charlatans and maniacs do still claim to talk to the dead.

There are things to like about Clint Eastwood’s strange, melancholy supernatural drama. Matt Damon is genuinely touching as a reluctant psychic who, disturbed by the effects of his readings, has retired from the business to work on a construction site.

The notion of employing three parallel stories, which only connect in the last 15 minutes, is a brave one. But the stubborn hint that the film-makers expect us to take this guff seriously skews an otherwise sober film towards the preposterous. It might have made more sense if directed by Hacky McHack from Trash Pictures.

We begin with a story hung around the Indian Ocean tsunami. A French journalist (Cécile de France), holidaying in the area, is swept out to sea and, after being revived following a near-death experience, goes on to develop an obsession with what lies beyond. Meanwhile, in London, a young boy (Frankie McClaren), the son of a ravaged heroin addict, tries to cope with the death of his twin brother.

We suspect that Damon, moping around in San Francisco, will eventually offer Cécile and Frankie some relief, but the coalition of interests takes some time to develop.

It seems almost sacrilegious to suggest that Peter Morgan, writer of The Queen, The Damned United, Frost/Nixonand half a dozen other true stories, has sent his script to the wrong director, but Eastwood's usual golden-age conventions seem all wrong for a contemporary spook drama. Even the great man's own music is too conventionally pretty.

Much of the acting is underpowered. And the establishing shots of London and Paris – Tower Bridge, the Arc de Triomphe – would not seem out of place in Team America: World Police.

Fret not. As is his way, Eastwood has already moved on to the next film. It’s about J Edgar Hoover. Now that sounds more like it.