I’ll ask you to suppress that sense of weariness you might feel on being asked to sit down and watch yet another multiple-plot-strand, ensemble-piece, look-how-interconnected-everyone-is movie (okay, maybe it’s just me that feels that sense of weariness) – this is one where the individual stories are interesting in their own right, not just because there’s three or four of them.

The central thread is death, and the dangling, elusive possibility of life – or consciousness – or some kind of undefined continued existence or other – beyond the grave. Inasmuch as there is a key character among the bunch we see, I’ll say it’s George (Damon), who can communicate with the dead, but can no longer bear to. Or can he communicate with the dead? It’s a while before we’re sure one way or another; but at least we’re reasonably sure he’s neither an outright fraud, which would be dull, nor delusional, which would be even duller – we know he has some sort of gift, or curse. In any event we’ll see his story collide with those of a French newsreader whose life is changed by a near-death experience; a British schoolboy who loses his twin brother, and others who need to deal with the closeness of death in different ways.

In real life people treat the possibility of an afterlife much more seriously than I do (I’m not sure it’s even possible to treat the idea of an afterlife less seriously than I do). So think: if even I am intrigued by the film, think how you will be.