A Ghost Story (2017) Reviews

• It's 30% Deeply Moving and 70% Deeply Boring

  Jared_Andrews2017-09-28

  If you prefer a movie rich with dialogue, A Ghost Story is not for you. There is very little speaking throughout the movie. Only one scene features much talking and it's not even a conversation. One man launches into a lengthy, detailed monologue about the infinite size of the universe and our relative insignificance within it. The man believes that the speech is profound and laudable, but in reality it sounds like something a college kid would say while high at a party. The gist of the man's speech expresses that the universe is too vast for any of us to truly leave a legacy when we die. The ghost (played by Casey Affleck) is especially compelled by this speech because he has just died and is now especially compelled by things concerning his legacy. The ghost observes what he cared about most while he was alive. He haunts his house. He observes his wife, struggling to watch her struggle to cope with his death. He wants desperately to comfort her, but cannot. It's heartbreaking. In addition to heartbreak, this movie evokes many other feelings: warmth, humor, boredom. Boredom comes up a lot. For every genuinely beautiful and moving moment of the movie, there is at least five minutes of emptiness. The runtime is short, just over 90 minutes, but it feels longer and could easily have been trimmed by 20 minutes. One scene in particular that involves a pie seems to drag on for at least four days, even though it actually only lasts four minutes. In the moment, the scene is likely unbearable to many viewers. I plead for your patience. Do your best to empathize. Think about how you would feel in the situation. Do this, and the scene becomes haunting and powerful. That's probably the best way to sum up the movie—many scenes may feel boring if given little thought, but are actually deeply moving if given honest consideration. Not all scenes fit this description—some, no matter how much your squint, are just extended moments of vapid emptiness. The emptiness outnumbers the deeply moving by about 2:1, so this movie requires patience and commitment. The movie contains no conflict, only contemplation and some glorious music. If that sounds like enough for you, give this movie a chance. But fair warning: if you bore easily this movie will feel like a waste of your time.

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• Impossible to rate

  samandor-157812018-03-06

  Imagine a joke that takes 90 minutes to tell, you never get to hear the actual punchline, and part of the point is how long and incredibly boring it is to get there - yet it makes sense at the end, and in some strange way seems fulfilling. If this sounds like your cuppa joe, you might like this flick. I'm glad I watched it, but wouldn't watch it again, and can't recommend it.

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• Oh DEAR LORD. A Most Awful Ghost Bore

  Her-Excellency2017-09-23

  To begin, let me state that I actually LIKE "pretentious" movies and films that speak to you on a different level. THIS, however, was pure torture and while I feel that the creators truly wanted to say something, it was MORE THAN APPARENT that they didn't have ENOUGH to say and so they filled it with mindbogglingly SLOW and sluggish scenes. SPOILERS: I see that many have already covered the scene with the pie, but I feel that they didn't quite get the point across correctly or do the utter banality of it, justice. You have a FULL FIVE MINUTES (_time them_), although they truly feel like ten or more, of the main female lead doing nothing but EATING A PIE! And yes, she does so rather well, in that it is meant to make you uncomfortable, and it does, but not in the way I imagine it was intended to do so. Trust me when I say that NO film EVER, in the history of films, needs a scene where for five minutes someone does nothing but eat a pie. Beyond that, it is not counting the ten minutes it took her to walk into the house, put her mail down, walk around, stand at the sink, look out the window, turn around and FIND THE PIE ... ... .... OR for that matter, the forever minutes earlier in the film where she literally drags a chest or box of some kind to the curbside - and I must bring your attention to the use of the word DRAGS. The scene is shot in painstaking detail and unbelievable SLOWNESS as she does this, across her ridiculously lonnnnng front yard (really, can a front lawn be that large or was it CGI?), and then does not cut while she THEN walks back across her lawn into her house. Oh! AND HOW, just how, can we forget the never-ending completely passionless / emotionless scene at the beginning where the couple is in bed? In fact, the word which fits this movie to a "T" IS "EMOTIONLESS". Trust me when I tell you that I have literally seen two Kleenex tissues at the bottom of a trash receptacle which had more chemistry and emotion and a bond than these two people had. Honestly, it is just too much ... of nothing. This film should have been a short of some kind, or else it needed more work before it was released. I applaud the creators in wanting to bring this film to the screen, BUT if you KNOW a project is not ready or not worthy, WHY do it and insult your viewers with such trash?

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• A Mind-Alteringly Realistic Depiction Of Human Life

  kjproulx2017-09-25

  This movie is simultaneously not for everyone, while also trying to demand everyone's attention. That statement may confuse some people, so please listen closely if you're intrigued, because this review if going to be about me gushing on how incredible this film is. Whole critics seem to general love this film, average moviegoers seem to be pretty divisive on this film in retrospect. Personally, I completely see how many would be bored or turned off by this film, so whether or not you like this film is up to you. Personally, this film opened my mind in ways I wasn't expecting and I found myself in a state of transfixion when the credits began to role. So, this review will definitely lean heavily on a recommendation to everyone, but please be advised that the film itself is absolutely not for everyone. Now that I have that out of the way, let's dive in. As a couple is about to move out of their first house onto bigger and better things, the husband (Casey Affleck) dies in a tragic accident. The film then follows the wife (Rooney Mara) as she copes with her loss. The husband returns in ghost form, walking around the halls of the house, watching her every move, stating that people really do watch over us after they die. This premise is fantastic, but the visuals themselves and the way the movie is constructed is what I feel may turn many people off. Coming off cheap by literally having the husband dressed in a bed sheet, the movie may seem cheesy to some, but that's not the point of it at all. From long takes of people sitting alone in a room to time travel in order to open viewers mind's, this movie takes many risks, but I think they are all genius in their own right if you're in the proper mood when watching this film. Going from many short films, to independent features, to a big blockbuster in last year's Pete's Dragon, director David Lowrey has been all over the business, so it was pretty clear that this was a passion project for him, and that the amount of viewers this film gained didn't matter to him in the slightest. I think this was the best way to make a movie like this, because only the most hardcore film fans will probably discover it, which is where I feel it's best suited anyways. There is so much symbolism about the meaning of life and which aspects of it really matter the most, but I feel as though many viewers won't catch on. Once again, if you're in the right mindset and are open to literally anything, then I believe you'll have the same reaction to this film that I did. Many viewers like being able to relate to a character when they speak to someone and open up about themselves, but this film is very far from anything like that. There are stretches of the film that can last up to 30 minutes without a single word being spoken, leaving it up to your interpretation on how they're feeling or what they're thinking. This is a very lonely-feeling film that you need to be relaxed and open-minded about. In my opinion, when a film can show you a piece of imagery and have you understand what a character is going through, what they're thinking, all while giving you a sincere look at our planet as a whole, when it's accomplishing everything it set out to do, and then some. Simply put, sometimes showing things to an audience is much more powerful than having it explained. In the end, A Ghost Story is strangely enough one of the most powerful experiences you'll be able to see an all of 2017. Now, there isn't much dialogue, so you really have to pay attention and think about every piece of imagery, but if you're willing to do that, then I believe you will have a terrific experience as well. If you're not into this film after the first 10-20 minutes then you're either not in the right mindset or it's just not for you, which I completely understand. Many people will hate this movie, but I believe the message itself is worth waiting for alone. A Ghost Story is easily one of my favourite films of the year and I can't wait to watch it multiple times

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• Worst Film I've Seen in a Long, Long Time

  MickGuinn2017-08-05

  O.M.Ghost! This was the WORST film I've seen in a long, _long_ time! It was so bad we were giggling and cracking jokes during it (we were in an empty theatre that night—unaware of what audiences may have already known). I'm never one of those rude people who talks during a film, but we didn't know how to survive without a little humorous banter. Most frequently uttered phrase that allowed small laugh related releases: "He's a very patient ghost." {SPOILER—well, actually, "RESCUER" Alert— since you should avoid seeing this film!} During the long, _long_ scenes where NOTHING happens, we began suggesting that Casey Affleck probably had a stand-in for this "art film" since he was covered in a sheet 95% of the time. Apparently, Kesha (Jerry Seinfeld's pal) plays the only other ghost in the film, but she too is covered with a sheet (with a floral pattern, so we know she's female) so who's to know who's under there? This whole film feels horribly self indulgent and pretentious. It presents like an undergrad film school project where the student film maker has just studied Andy Warhol, Kurosawa, or a Jarmusch film backwards or something. The movie is littered with bad 4-5 minute scenes when _nothing_ happens. Nothing. The ghost just stands there. Okay. I get it. He says nothing, stands there for an interminable amount of time and we get to project our own thoughts and feelings on him. Done. Understood. Can we please move on now?… We get to watch Rooney Mara eat an entire pie in one long shot that eats up 5 minutes of screen time, while her dead husband, the ghost, just stands there, unmoving, and watches the whole thing through a the sheet. I guess that's her actor moment when she really "commits to the part." After a couple minutes, it pulled us out of the film as we began to wonder about the actress and not the character she was playing with a blank face to match her ghost's. Does she throw up for real in the background?... Honestly, I feel like I'm living in Bizarro world when I read summary snippets like this one at Rotten Tomatoes: "A passionate young couple, unexpectedly separated by a shocking loss, discover an eternal connection and a love that is infinite." WHAT?!…. "Passionate?!" Where the hell was passion in this film? Even the 4-5 minute kissing and cuddling scene in the beginning was sterile, like an unthawed Ingmar Bergman homage. I love kissing and cuddling. We were bored out of our minds watching _nothing_ transpire between the two leads before Casey dies and turns into a ghost with that famously easy Halloween costume. Certainly didn't see "love." Plenty of "eternal." THAT's a promise the film delivers on! It's an experience in mind numbing eternity. You'll feel older leaving the theater. And with all of this "undying love," why does Affleck's ghost offer zero comfort to his grieving wife? There's only one moment where he reaches out with sheet to touch her hand. The rest of the time he stands in the corner like a sad boy in 2nd Grade, shamed for some misbehavior. We see him get angry and flash the lights when she brings a new man back home. She finally moves out, and for reasons that are never clear, Affleck's ghost terrorizes a single-parented Latino family who buys the home. We're supposed to to assume he's frustrated or confused or sad because Rooney left? But he does so by hurling dishes against the wall in front of little kids and their Mom as they try to eat dinner. Assumedly it's to answer that questions that haunts us all, "Why do ghosts throw things?" Yeahhhhhh…. Right. While Lowery's tale may be a horribly misplaced homage to foreign cinema or film school, it really felt like it robbed us of a couple hours we'll never get back. Why does it not surprise me it was made with only $100k? It could have been an interesting, half hour episode of "Black Mirror." There are some good shots of the ghost standing alone amidst rubble, and the strange flipping forward and backward in time to suggest a loop. There are even a couple of dry humorous moments when the absurdity of the white sheeted ghost just tickles. Sadly, these moments extend another 3-4 minutes too long, grinding all of the possible humor out of the moment like stereotypical Germans editing comedy. There are even 2 Affleck ghosts at the end of the film as if to suggest this time loop might keep creating ghosts for every one that finally translates into the beyond? Okay, that's interesting. There's the endless attempt to get the piece of paper that Rooney leaves for him in the door jam, but we never see what she wrote. Oh,… I. get. it. WE are supposed to write whatever we think she wrote there! "Hey, I'm okay. You can go now." Can WE go now? ALL of this could have been done in 30-45 minutes. It feels horribly narcissistic and pretentious to expect an audience to sit through this unceasing indulgence. I have no idea what happened at Sundance when this screened, but it may be one of the rare downsides of legal weed. The anti-entertainment critics were in full force when they rated this film. I give it TWO, no _FOUR_ THUMBS DOWN. You've been forewarned. Please ignore the high Rotten Tomatoes rating. Something failed in the ratings system because when you read some of the "positive" reviews, they list these problems too. Perhaps it too reminded them fondly of film school?… He's a very patient ghost…it's unlikely audiences will be. Zzzzz.......

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