I am seldom asking such questions, but now I need to ask it. ‘Why did they do this film?’. Seriously. A film may made because the director or the script writer have one or more messages to transmit. In some other cases the message is not that important, and the goal is to entertain. Films have target audiences that go to see it because of the message or because they want to be entertained. Of course, there are better films and not so good films. In the case of David Lowery‘s A Ghost Story I can appreciate some moments of good cinema. And yet, I did not get any message and I was deeply bored. Life of ghosts is probably boring, this is what I understood from this film. But why should film audiences be bored also, some of them after paying money for the film tickets? So, please, somebody who understood the messages that I missed, and/or was entertained by this film, please, be kind and help me!
source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6265828/mediaviewer/rm948854016
A young couple, C for Casey Affleck and M for Rooney Mara live in a country house. He is a musician, she uses to leave hidden messages in places she lives. He dies suddenly in an accident and has to cope with grieving and continuing to live. He turns into a ghost, with a blanket and two holes (for eyes? we never see them) who watches her, the house, the life that goes on, time. I will stop telling more in order to avoid spoiling whatever pleasure one may get from watching this film. I could understand the feelings. I could relate to what the characters are feeling. But I never understood whether the director really wanted us (viewers) to resonate or just played a big joke. It just did not make sense.
There is a game with time that the script is playing with the viewers. I will again avoid spoilers and say no more that time happens differently to ghosts than to humans which is something quite obvious. At some point in time, in a rather unrelated scene a supporting character makes a party drunk speech about Beethoven and the cosmic cycles of the Universe. Are we supposed to understand that we all (human and ghosts) live some smaller cycles within the Big Cycle? Maybe.
Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara are fine actors, but they did not help too much in this film. The ghost blanket looks kind of funny, maybe it was supposed to provide the comic counterpoint, actually there are a few more, including a she-ghost in a neighboring house. Cinematography is good, but the overall slowness of the camera movements make feel the about 80 minutes like three hours. Overall it’s a pretentious, boring and confusing experience.