Review of A Ghost Story (2017) by Kevin T — 03 Oct 2017

David Lowery is fast becoming a director to keep a close eye on. His Malick-esque Ain't Them Bodies Saints struck a strong indie and meditative vibe before he, somewhat bizarrely, took on Disney's remake of Pete's Dragon and made a huge success out of it. Now, though, Lowery returns to the same tone of Saints by delivering a very unusual and unique take on a ghost story. With a brief synopsis of the plot or by even judging the films poster you'd be forgiven for thinking that this film is possibly a joke or at least one that relies heavily on humour. But it's not and it doesn't. This is a very poker-faced meditation on memories, attachments and loneliness and, for those with an open mind, it works an absolute treat.

Plot: A musician (Casey Affleck) and his wife (Rooney Mara) prepare to move from their rural house before the musician is suddenly killed in a car accident. Waking on a mortuary slab in a white sheet, his ghostly spectre returns to his house where he has to witness his wife's grief and come to terms with the fact that he is no longer part of our waking world.

Lowery's film is a very simplistic one. He starts slowly and quietly by using minimal dialogue and he adds little to no backstory on his two main characters, refusing to even give them names. Mara and Affleck are merely credited with the initials 'M' and 'C' respectively and it's this sparse approach that lends the film its intrigue. For those expecting or demanding jump scares or shrieking damsels you'd be better served by looking elsewhere. It does have its ghostly apparition but that's as far as it goes in terms of it feeling anything like a horror. This is, in fact, more a rumination on life and the impact (or lack of) that an individual has with their time on this earth. It focuses on grief and the passage of time whereby everything that was once important to a person will inevitably be washed away and, in the grander scheme, their existence ultimately becomes inconsequential.

Lowery gives plenty of food for thought here and skilfully achieves the impact of time by employing a languorous pace. The pacing will put many viewers off as there is a certain commitment and patience required when exploring C's torturous purgatory but there's also a genuine intimacy at work. C witnesses his wife's grief while being unable to provide any comfort or solace just as he also witnesses her move on with her life when she eventually brings a date home and then packs up to leave the home that they once shared. It's in these moments that you identify with C's grief and one scene in particular has another ghostly spectre appear at a neighbours window. They both communicate with each other on how they're just "waiting for someone" but can't remember who and it's at this point that you realise the nightmarish isolation that these wandering souls are left with. Their essence and being has essentially been forgotten which resonates strongly with the existential musings from time immemorial.

A genuinely heartfelt and thought provoking piece of work. Lowery explores the metaphysical with more than a tinge of despair and deep sadness. For a concept that would normally be laughed out the door, Lowery and his cast deserve the utmost praise for attempting something very different and, better still, managing to pull it off when they could so easily have failed. This film may be slow but it's also rich and hugely rewarding when you allow it to express its elegiac tones.

Mark Walker.