Review of A Ghost Story (2017) by Moviemitch96 — 28 Jul 2017

No matter how bizarre or polarizing a film from them looks at first glance, A24's name being attached to a film is usually all the incentive I need to check it out, as I've always highly admired their keen eye for unique and/or bizarre premises and stories from the films that they (usually) wisely choose to distribute.

That was certainly the case for this film prior to me seeing it, as I was highly intrigued by its simple yet universal premise of life, love, loss, etc. Unfortunately, the best way for me to sum this film up is 'huge potential wasted.

' The film felt incredibly disjointed, jumping from so many random points and events in time. In addition, Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara's talents felt rather wasted to me, as they literally don't speak for well over half the film (seriously, I'm pretty sure a little over half the film contained no dialogue, as the entire middle act of the film is borderline silent).

To top it all off, the film felt to me as though it really had no clear sense of direction or what it wanted to convey at certain times or how to convey certain things. So many scenes felt as though they were there just for filler purposes.

An excellent case in point: We get to watch a depressed and grieving Rooney Mara eat a whole pie in her kitchen for about 5+ minutes. Overall, some of the film's ideas and symbolic purposes pertaining to its subject matter were somewhat interesting, and it had some decent imagery as well, but the rest of this film felt very void-like, much like the film's subject matter, which was certainly what I wasn't hoping for.