'A Ghost Story' Review

A Ghost Story shadows a young couple as the husband dies and returns to his home to attempt and reforge a connection with his emotionally overwhelmed wife in the form of a white-sheeted ghost invisible to the human eye. The film that follows then details a unique exploration the importance of legacy, love, and life.

David Lowery writes, directs, and edits A Ghost Story as his follow-up to the Pete's Dragon remake he directed for Disney last year. Lowery makes the distinct decision to shoot A Ghost Story in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio (to give you an idea of what that looks like, all the remaining images from the film I'm including in this review will be in that aspect ratio). For those confused as to what an aspect ratio is, it's defined as the ratio of width to height of an image or screen. If you'd like to hear more about aspect, here's a video essay that explains aspect ratios far better than I ever could... 

So now, you hopefully have some understanding of what an aspect ratio actually is and I can carry on...

Lowery has gone on record saying the use of that aspect ratio was intentional for the purposes of visually conveying the claustrophobia Casey Affleck's ghost felt after becoming a ghost and being trapped within the confines of his old life. Speaking of which, A Ghost Story is a film that always takes the opportunity to show rather than tell. Cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo lets the camera linger for long periods of time to demonstrate what it's like to be condemned to such purgatory as a ghost. There's rarely any accompanying score utilized, but Daniel Hart's compositions are eerie when they do creep in, certainly communicating the ethereal plane of ghosthood. 

It's difficult to describe exactly how I felt about A Ghost Story because I can't help but admire the ambiguous artistry on display. However, it's a VERY slow-paced film so it was easy to lose focus every time I got bored. For that reason, I can't really recommend you watch A Ghost Story because I know you may struggle with that same issue. 

Anyways, A Ghost Story is an otherworldly artistic film. A Ghost Story was haunting, but not in the proverbial sense. Scary? Nope. Pretentious? Absolutely. For one, it's a meditative film that focuses on the meaning of life and all that mumbo jumbo. There are no clear cut answers to anything that happens because you, as the viewer, must interpret everything you just witnessed. While I don't mind a bit of ambiguity, A Ghost Story overdoes it to the point where things just abruptly happen and there's not much around to explain it all because the film is low on dialogue. 

Secondly, the protagonist essentially wears an iconic homemade Halloween costume for a large duration of the film's running time. I did often wonder if Casey Affleck was actually underneath the sheet or not because there's no way to tell, and honestly it could have been anyone acting underneath considering the ghost just walks around.

Then there's the infamous five minute scene where Rooney Mara scarfs down almost an entire pie. That was surely something else, and I've gotta hand it to Mara for making that scene work. It could have easily become laughably stupid, but Mara committed to the idea that the pie functioned as a comfort mechanism in her grieving process.

Otherwise, Affleck and Mara produce the quality performances you'd expect from such accomplished actors. They aren't offered much dialogue, so their performances are purely physical and I personally had difficulty investing in them as characters because there's not much there for either "C" or "M" beyond the surface level. As a result, I was emotionally detached from the story for the entirety of my viewing experience.

While certainly well made, A Ghost Story didn't linger with me afterwards as much as I'm such Lowery would have liked. Instead, I just thought to myself "Wow... That was overly long, slow, boring, and quite pretentious." 

Film Assessment: C+