A GHOST STORY
Sheet happens
released 11 august
12a | 92 minutes
Director david lowery
Cast Casey affleck, rooney Mara, Will Oldham. sonia acevedo
Generating critical buzz after its Sundance premiere, A Ghost Story is a movie that probably won’t appeal to people who like ghost stories. It’s not a chiller but a slow, arthouse pondering on death and grief, starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck with a bedsheet over his head.
When “C” (Affleck) is killed, his wife “M” (Mara) is distraught, and though C returns to the house as a ghost decked in a sheet, M can’t see him. There are interesting ideas at play here – ghost-C is tied to the house even when M moves out, and time for C is no longer linear, so it’s as if he’s always been there – even long before human-C was born. There’s a rather poignant silent interaction between ghost-C and another ghost waiting for a loved one they can no longer remember, but overall it’s a concept that’s stretched a bit thin.
In one scene, after C has died, the grief-stricken M sits on the floor and eats a pie. The camera stays static while she silently eats almost the entire pie in real time; whether you find this meaningful or excruciating is likely to inform whether this movie is for you.
A Ghost Story is quiet, shadowy and subdued, and drenched in sadness without ever quite managing to be moving. It would have made an astonishing short, but as a feature it feels like a student film, though director David Lowry is no plucky newcomer – he worked with Affleck and Mara on Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, and more recently
M sits on the floor and eats a pie in real time
made children’s film Pete’s Dragon. A Ghost Story is original but not especially enjoyable, existential but not exactly profound, with good performances – though there’s only so much even Affleck can do from under a bedsheet. Boringly haunting.
That pie was a low-sugar, gluten-free vegan chocolate pie. According to Rooney Mara, “it was really gross.”