Late in Hereafter, tsunami victim and once-ruthless hot French journalist Marie DeLay reads from her investigation _Hereafter: A Conspiracy of Silence_, some lines about how we have such trouble dealing with death that we come up with foolish accounts that cover up our difficulties really engaging. I almost expected her to look into the camera, turning the film on a dime from its painstaking hours of staking out people’s rather dull pain to a bitter send-up of such hankie-baiting twaddle.
Alas, no. The sad boy gets to cry (finally) and then gets a hug from mom, and the sad man gets to feel a connection with others’ pain (finally) and then the promise of a kiss, and so on. Tidy. Tedious. Twaddle.