Movie Reaction: A Ghost Story

Formula: (The Tree of Life + Ghost) ^ -2

When it comes to independent films, sometimes the question you need to ask is how small of an idea is too small an idea for a feature film. That's certainly the concern with David Lowery's new film  A Ghost Story. It's a sparse movie with an ever sparser plot. A lot of independent films start as shorts, either as a proof of concept to get more funding or because the filmmaker had a kernel of an idea that he/she wanted to expand upon. A Ghost Story feels like it was a short that Lowery wasn't done with. It's not. It started as a feature despite the content, and that's the problem I think a lot of people will have with it.

There really isn't much to the movie. It's the story of a couple played by Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck. They live in this old house. Affleck dies and wakes up as a white sheet ghost tied to this house. Literally, the majority of the film is Affleck under a bed sheet with eye holes poked into it. He watches unnoticed in the house as Mara works through her grief and eventually moves away. He stays in the house as others live there over the years, still silently observing. Hardly anything is said the whole time. It's more of a meditation on loss, change, and impermanence than a movie with a straightforward story.

A lot of people will throw the word "pretentious" around when talking about this and they won't be wrong. Just about everything in this movie is directorial chest-pounding. It's like Lowery is inviting criticism from every angle with a lot of off-beat choices (and still pulls off something pretty great). After all, the visual of Affleck in a bed sheet alone could get laughs or derision if someone doesn't buy into the film. There's a reset the film does toward the end that is perplexing. At one point, a character played by Will Oldham* delivers a speech that explicitly underlines the themes of the movie in case you missed them. Oh, and there's the pie scene, which is an early test of if you have the patience for this film. If you aren't connecting with what this movie is doing, it will, appropriately enough, feel like an eternity to you.

*Oddly fitting casting if you are familiar with his discography.

Personally, I really liked it. I enjoyed the long takes with the minimal camera movement. Lowery would rather let a moment go on too long than cut it short. There's a couple scenes with a ghost in the house next door to Affleck that will be thinking about for a while. I love how Lowery shows the passing of time. It's never clear if we are experiencing time the way the ghost is. Does the ghost sit and wait every moment of every day, or is time more blurred for him? Seasons or years pass in an instant while others linger. So much of the movie is subject to interpretation. The use and lack of use of sound and music is great. There's moments so quiet that I could hear the employees in the movie theater lobby talking and others when the soundtrack takes over the scene. The film never quite allows you to get level footing on it. It likes to break its own rules or at least remind you that there aren't any rules. It's subtle when it wants to be. It's blunt when it wants to be. Close or distant. Detailed or broad. It's a great mix.

I have to give Lowery all the credit in the world for getting me to read so much emotion onto a bed sheet with black eye holes. Technically, there's no expression on the ghost's "face". I still knew what he was feeling though. Affleck is given the Harrison Burgeron treatment with his performance* and still makes it work. This might be my favorite Mara role yet (maybe second to Carol. It's hard to say). So little is said verbally that she has to do a lot with her face and the way she carries herself. She nails it.

*Most of the ghost performance is still Affleck even though it doesn't have to be. He missed a few reshoots, but it's almost all him, according to Lowery.

This is the rare movie that I like because of the details despite the larger story. The film has very little plot. In the third act, the story moves in an unexpected direction that feels a little like a bail out. It's one of those things that fits thematically but makes me question the rules of the film's universe. The film won't be for everyone. I'm a little surprised that I liked it as much as I did. It's definitely more art than entertainment if you want to go by that binary: a very emotional film. I think you will be able to tell in the first 15 minutes if this film is for you or not, and the people who will hate it will REALLY hate it, I suspect. Between the sparseness of Ain't Them Bodies Saints and the surprising emotional heft of Pete's Dragon, this makes sense as Lowery's third film. It's not like any other movie I've seen this year.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend