'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+

'Lion' Review

Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor; Dev Patel, Best Supporting Actress; Nicole Kidman, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Score.

Lion tells the true story of a five year old, Saroo, who's separated from his family and must fend for himself as he traverses the large landmass, that is India, in search of home. Fortunately for Saroo, he's adopted by a well-off Australian family but twenty five years later is constantly reminded of his complicated past so he sets out to find his home and family using Google Earth. That's the basic premise of Lion, an adaptation of real-life Saroo Brierley's novel "A Long Way Home" directed by first time feature director Garth Davis.

Davis finds the appropriate tone, setting, and direction to guide the story with exceptional framework captured by Greig Fraser, well-weaved editing from Alexandre de Francheschi, and a beautiful score composed by Volker Bertelmann and Dustin O'Halloran. Lion is undoubtedly distinct from the fellow Best Picture nominees yet similar to Moonlight, in that both show their respective protagonists at different stages of life. However, Moonlight is more a coming-of age story while Lion's a film about tragedy and quite literally finding home. In hindsight, I just realized that Lion has virtually the same exact plot as Finding Dory, with different details filling in the protagonist's set of circumstances. 

I'll warn you now that the opening ten/fifteen minutes of Lion are absolutely heart wrenching. I'll confess to tearing up a few times through the two hour runtime (approximately an hour and fifty eight minutes) and screenwriter Luke Davies really dives into the horrible truths about India's lost and homeless children through the appropriate lens of Saroo's innocent eyes. 

My only gripes with Lion lie in the film's structure and the way the story's framed. The first half of the film focuses on the young Saroo wandering further and further away from home in hopes of reaching his family but there's a middle-point where the film jumps forward about twenty-twenty five years, leaving a huge gap in Saroo's life and preventing the viewer from emphasizing with Saroo's adoptive family situation. Saroo is positioned as a jerk towards his girlfriend and family in the second half when he seeks to pursue his real family. He becomes an emotionally distant recluse obsessed with his end goal. The viewer logically understands his reasoning for his actions but not his decision to distance himself from those closest to him. This is resolved of course but it's almost unbearable to watch the older Saroo treat his friends and family this way for that portion of the film. 

If any actor's going to get a huge boost from this film, it's undoubtably Sunny Pawar. Pawar portrays Saroo at the younger stages of his life and this child is another remarkable child actor to emerge from 2016. Pawar showcases an impressive emotional spectrum for his age, displaying everything from convincing childlike wonder to hopeful despair. Pawar's excellent performance serves as a solid foundation for Dev Patel's take on an older, troubled Saroo. 

Patel takes the character in a completely different direction as I've mentioned but maintains spouts of enthusiastic optimism and determination evidenced by Pawar. Despite some of the character flaws, Patel gives an incredibly rich performance and manages to convincingly convey the emotional anguish he suffers from as a result of his journey. 

Abhishek Bharate's stint as Saroo's older brother Guddu stands out as a encouraging mentor for Saroo as the brotherhood between Guddu and Saroo is an emotional driving force behind the film. 

Nicole Kidman genuinely conveys both the anxiety and caring sensibilities often found in concerned mothers as Saroo's adoptive mother Sue Brierley, while David Wenham is a steady rock of emotional support as Sue's husband and Rooney Mara's relegated to the clingy over-supportive girlfriend role. 

Lion is more an inspiring story than it is a great movie but the strength of its filmmaking, performances, and story are impossible to ignore, making Lion a worthwhile endeavor.

Film Assessment: B