Review of A Ghost Story (2017) by Tor M — 01 Dec 2017

A beautiful, thought-provoking piece that delivers an unexpected journey through heavy emotions and some of our most painful conflicts. The trailer leads one to believe the movie will consist of two rising stars trying to out-sad each other in (another) movie about how heartbreaking it is to love and lose. Which, to be honest, I would have been fine with. But, this movie is not a springboard for Mara and Afleck to grab nominations. They could have easily replaced these two with cheaper talent without losing anything from the film, but probably chose to use them to help get butts in the seats. It's hard to say exactly what this film "is" or "does", as it kind of dips its toes in several pools. It was an interesting attempt to try and explain what might happen when we die. I don't even think it was a serious attempt, more of a "hey, wouldn't it be cool if...".

C and M's relationship was portrayed as young, naive and probably unhealthy. C was a self-obsessed musician who payed little attention to his wife, while M was seemingly trying to turn him into the man she dreamed of when she was a little girl watching Disney movies. An unfortunately common tale in the real world today. He dies suddenly and she is unsure of how to act. She is sad, sure, but is maybe kind of relived that she doesn't have to spend the rest of her life with him. Lots guilt there, I'm sure.

Lowry spends the rest of the movie laying out interesting rules for the afterlife. The ghost has a choice to walk through the rainbow door into the true afterlife, or stick around to get some closure. Ghosts can communicate. Ghosts are tied to the physical location of their closure journey. Massive chunks of time can fly by in what seems like seconds. If you try to kill your ghost self, you start over at the point in time in which that physical location was first occupied by humans, and have to watch it all play out again. Time is a circle, not a line. History plays out again the same way it did, like a script. A ghost can slip into the afterlife by either giving up on their journey (like the neighbor ghost) or finally fulfilling their quest.

A lot of viewers were upset because they came into the film with established expectations. It is not a love story and it is not a scary movie. Their relationship is barely a side plot. There isn't much dialogue. There is less action. The plot is a little foggy. What this movie is, is an artful deep thinker, meant to stir up some of our deepest emotions and fears about our existence while taking a fun stab at showing what might happen after we pass. Adjust your expectations, and enjoy this film.

PS: The score is incredible.