A Ghost Story Review (2017)

A Ghost Story

  A Ghost Story is the story of, you guessed it, a ghost! Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck play a married couple whose lives are turned upside down when the husband gets into a car crash and dies. That said, his story doesn't end there. Casey Affleck comes back as a ghost and haunts the home where he and his wife lived.
  Now, I waited a while to review this movie because honestly I didn't really know what to feel about it and I wanted to let it marinate. At times it felt extremely pretentious, and other times it was moving. This is definitely an art house film, so if you're not into that style of filmmaking, this isn't going to change your mind.
  Starting off with the positives, some of the framing in this movie was absolutely stunning. The child-like simplicity of the ghost, mixed with the sweeping landscapes blew me away. It was straight visual poetry at it's finest, and I loved it.  An interesting choice of the director, however, was to have the entire film shot in a little box like frame. I understand that he wants the audience to feel kind of trapped, but if anything, the smaller screen just distances the audience from the characters.
  Speaking of characters, there is hardly any dialogue in this movie, apart from a really random monologue in the middle where a hipster guy explains the whole point of the film. Rooney Mara did what she can with the part, but the story isn't really about her. It's about the ghost that we can't see.
  There were a couple scenes in the movie where David Lowery holds a shot for an uncomfortable amount of time. I kid you not, there is a scene where Rooney Mara eats a pie for 9 minutes. 9 MINUTES! During scenes like these, I honestly wanted to just get up and leave, and the group of people watching with me felt the same way. For 9 minutes I heard sighs and groans and awkward whispers. There were a lot of moments like this, which made A Ghost Story feel very long.
  Despite all this, when the film ended, it did hit me emotionally and it's hard to explain why. Maybe it was the choice of music, or a subconsious manipulation of my emotions, or ghosts cutting onions. I'm not sure. All I know is that I left that theater feeling very confused. I loved the original, ambitious concept, but the execution was lacking as was any kind of momentum. I'm gonna have to disagree with the critics on this one and give it a 3 out of 10 stars (Watch At Your Own Risk)