Skip to main content

"A Ghost Story" is Mysterious and Moving: Review

Film Review: A Ghost Story

                                   Image result for a ghost story

Between Personal Shopper and David Lowery's A Ghost Story, 2017 has been a good year for thought-provoking ghost movies. Lowery's film is the stranger of the two, but still one of the most memorable movies in quite some time. It's an entrancing contemplation of love and loss, an exploration through time of what it means to be connected to a place, to a person. 

Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck play an unnamed couple. We don't learn much about them, but we learn that they are in love. A heavy sense of dread pervades these early scenes of the film. Affleck's character dies and his ghost returns to his house to observe first Mara, then other occupants of the house and the land on which it sits. It has been said that when a person dies in a sudden traumatic way (like the car crash Affleck's character dies from), their soul remains tethered to something that feels familiar. For this ghost, that place is the house he shared with Mara's character and felt connected to even before he dies. Time appears to work differently for the ghost as centuries pass in what feels like a couple of minutes. In that way the movie reminded me, weirdly, of Interstellar. It examines our legacy,  a note we leave in the wall, a song we write, and asks the question what outlives us. But the film is more comforting than the pretentious scientific explanation of death spouted off by a drunk guy at a party at the center of the movie would suggest. The guy says trying to leave a legacy is ultimately pointless because everything will eventually die anyway, but the movie's not that nihilistic. That the ghost is tethered to the house in the first place means that there was something there, something that didn't die when he did. 

The ghost is represented, not by makeup or digital effects, but by a white sheet with eyeholes cut out. The image is not as funny as when Charlie Brown wears the same costume. It's odd, surprising, but one that immediately allows the audience to understand the situation and to sympathize with the ghost. Although he never speaks (he does silently communicate with another ghost in one eery subtitled scene), the ghost is remarkably able to convey his frustration and loneliness.

A Ghost Story is David Lowery's third film as a director. Mara and Affleck had previously worked with him on his first feature, Ain't Them Bodies Saints. His second was last year's remake of Pete's Dragon. If that seems like a weird movie to be sandwiched in between two much smaller arthouse films, that's because it is. A mainstream kids movie doesn't seem like it would be something Lowery would have much interest in making, but I'm glad he did because Pete's Dragon was excellent and you should see it if you haven't already. With only three movies under his belt he has established himself as a director who can work successfully on both small and large scale projects. Whatever he chooses to do next will definitely have my attention. 

What did you think of A Ghost Story? Leave a comment to let me know! Thanks for reading!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Muppets Bring Humor and Heart to the Hollywood Bowl in "The Muppets Take the Bowl": Review

The Muppets are in  a bit of weird situation. Six years ago they made their big comeback with a smash hit movie, but since then they have had another flop movie and a short-lived television show. The franchise is still figuring out what iteration of itself works best for a 21st-century audience, and if it's not movies and it's not TV, what is it? It seems like they are trying to answer that question by putting on a rare live performance, happening September 8-10th at the Hollywood Bowl. Like the good Muppet fan I am, I was on hand opening night in eager anticipation of finding out what a live Muppet show looks like. It looked like, well, what you might expect it to look like. Puppeteers dressed in all black performing their characters right before our very eyes. That is when there wasn't a platform or podium they could hide behind, which there occasionally was during the course of the two-and-a-half hour show. While it certainly isn't how we are used to experienc

"My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore": Why Taylor Swift's "Gold Rush" Is a Song About Songwriting

"My mind turns your life into folklore." That line, from the song "Gold Rush," is the only time the word "folklore" is spoken on either of Taylor Swift's 2020 records, Folklore and Evermore , the latter of which is where the song appears. The presence of the line indicates that "Gold Rush" is a pivotal song not only in Swift's lockdown duology, but in her maturation as a songwriter.  Swift's early albums often drew heavily from her own experiences, with fans and the media scouring her lyrics for clues as to which ex-boyfriend her numerous breakup songs referred. Her tumultuous dating life made as many headlines as her music, in part because it informed so much of the music. The discourse was often ridiculous and reductive, and thankfully, that period of her career is over (Swift has been in a relationship with the actor Joe Alwyn since 2016).  Both of her 2020 albums have their fair share of autobiographical songs, but they also see

Every Julie London Album Ranked

Last month, for school I had to write a long research paper about 17th century Flemish flower paintings, which was a bit outside my comfort zone. So, I needed writing music and a lot of it. After listening a bit to Amazon Music's playlist "Big Band Christmas", I came across the song "Warm in December" by Julie London. It was a name I'd heard before, but I knew next to nothing about her. But the song was good enough to send me to Wikipedia, where I learned that London released 30 albums in the 14 years between 1955 and 1969. Most of the material she recorded was standards, the kind I spent most of 2020 listening to, so I decided that listening to London's entire discography (in order) would be perfect for writing my paper. Now, the paper's done ( I got an A), and I'm left with many, many thoughts about Julie London.  A film actress before releasing her first album, Julie is Her Name , in 1955, London had a mega-hit single with "Cry Me a River