Absolutely the worst movie.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

I'm not a harsh critique when it comes to slow, beautifully shot romantic films and I grew up with Iranian cinema and the utterly slow movies of Abbas Kiarostami, Majid Majidi and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, but 'Here' is slow for no good philosophical, metaphysical, spiritual, or even sensual reason. The cinematography is lovely, and the production value is good, but the script could have had a couple of rewrites. The acting is okay and what makes it okay is not the work of the actors but the weakness of the script and the lack of enough tension or conflict for the actors to deliver their best performance possible. Despite the slowness and the rawness of the script, I did like the setting, Armenia, which we don't get to see very often in non- Armenian cinema, and how life is like there.

On the surface of it this rather tedious movie is about two people traveling around the countryside of Armenia making maps and taking pictures. They try to relate to each other, but in the end they part. The map-making comes to an unsatisfactory conclusion for one reason or another. So does their relationship.The story teller tells us that they came to a place with a fence around it that could not be mapped. He says every map and every globe has a space in it like that. So we the viewers are left with a feeling of emptiness. Nothing worked.But this movie is not about making maps or taking pictures of the Armenian countryside. The Armenian countryside is a metaphor for the human heart. It is not true that every map and every globe has a space in it that is blank and cannot be mapped. Google Earth and satellite imagery can map every inch on this planet. It is every human heart that has a fenced-in blank space in it.What people are looking for is someone who can help fill in this blank space in their heart that they can't fill themselves. These two people explored each other physically and mentally, but in the end they did not fill this need in each other.It does not have to be this way. Sometimes it works. In a similar movie Take Me Home it worked. In real life it can work if the space is not too large and if the fence is not too high and if the right people come together.As a road movie this is a flop. As an existential experience it is pretty good.

HERE is not likely to be a phenomenal box office hit - nor does it seem to be intended for that. This extended (126 minutes) visual, poetic, philosophical experience is more an unwinding meditation about the beauty of Armenia and the crisscrossing of two lives of people who happen to encounter each other and find more definition of their own direction through a slowly developing love story. The film's opening moments are visually blinks of light and color and barely recognizable landscape as background to some lovely philosophical commentary made by off screen Peter Coyote. It plays like an overture to the story that lies ahead.Will Shepard (Ben Foster) is an American satellite-mapping cartographer who has been assigned a location in Armenia to adjust the satellite images of this country. He speaks no Armenian and while attempting to order food in a café he is aided by a girl Gadarine Nazarian (Lubna Azabal) who provides translation. Gadarine is a photographer who spends her time on the road, away from her elderly parents and brother, taking artistic photographs: she has had a successful show of her work in Paris. Will and Gadarine chat momentarily but more importantly they connect with a mutually felt magnetism. Coincidences bring them together to travel as Gadarine photographs the countryside and village people and Will works on his meticulous mapping techniques. Their relationship develops into one of passion and filling each other's needs, but at the same time their coming together defines where each of these unique people find their life direction. How the couple close the film is too special to share in a review.The true star of this film is the cinematographer Lol Crowley who with director and writer Braden King layout the most mysteriously beautiful landscape images: at times there is no dialogue to interfere with the sheer eloquence of the images of Armenian countryside. The musical score is minimal - by Boxhead Ensemble - and that adds to the meditative aspect of the film. Yes, there are scenes where Will and Gadarine interact with other characters and these are sensitive diversions. But basically this is an extended melancholic road trip, taken at a deliberately slow pace to allow the audience to discover the HERE with Will and Gadarine. It seems even longer than its excessive over-two hour length, but at the same time it is a film that refreshes the mind from all the noise and madness of the other current films. Recommended for those who appreciate experimental filmmaking. Grady Harp

This is one of those movies that let one wander ones own masochistic tendencies. There are some interesting premises, the exotic allure of the Armenian location, known and usually decent actors, a background of a complex and modern conflict and the human interest of a different culture. All is wasted. From the first moment of the movies one realizes that it is an exercise in narcissism. All unveils on incredible slow pace, with the long shots of landscapes, glances and a mostly discontinued episodic narrative. The type of film you can leave for coffee and return to without missing much. At the end it boils down to the story of a rather uninteresting romance interspersed with insufferable dullard voice-overs and tedious pretentious imagery. Avoid.