Review of A Ghost Story (2020)

Review of A Ghost Story

Giving Up The Ghost

“I must rejoice beyond the bounds of time...though the world may shudder at my joy, and in its coarseness know not what I mean”

― Jan van Ruysbroeck (Christian Mystic)

“Yeah when I get to heaven, I'm gonna take that wristwatch off my arm. What are you gonna do with time after you’ve bought the farm?”

― John Prine, When I get to Heaven

We understand life as a linear narrative driven by the passage of time. But what if death involved seeing our story as an open panorama? What if you could experience any moment in any order? This is what David Lowery presents in A Ghost Story. It is a horror movie; or more precisely: it is a horror movie? Lowery is nothing if not subversive. What else can you say about a director who places his central character under a bedsheet for a vast majority of the film. That’s right Casey Affleck, the talented actor, is completely obscured by the cheapest homemade Halloween costume imaginable: a white cotton covering with two cut-outs for eyes. It is an amazing performance, even though his expressions are completely opaque. I checked and Casey himself was under wraps for most of the performance.Yes, it mattered. I can’t explain why. What do you expect from a “horror film” that borrows more from Andy Warhol’s deadpan rather than George Romero’s gore, Wes Craven’s slashing or Stephen King’s creepiness.    

Lowery is interested in “to be AND not to be”. This is a reflecting on action movie. Rather than stalking, molesting, entertaining or cajoling, this poor soul watches and contemplates. Casper the friendly ghost is now the soul-mate of Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener. Please repeat in a soft monotone: “I would prefer not to be funny”. Nicholson’s character in The Shinning now puts down his ax and plaintively watches his family… for months. No work and no play makes Jack a very pensive boy. Suspended animation rules the day. The few deadly moments are presented as after-events with muted sound. Adding to the seeming blandness comes the bare storyline. The “action” centers around a single location, a drab house, which contains a secret. The wife, prior to the husband’s death, places a note in the crack in a wall. The ghost spends his time trying to retrieve that small piece of paper. The phrase “spends his time” has a radically different meaning in the context of the afterlife. Whereas the living are harnessed to the clock, the afterlife is, literally, eternal. Looking for the contents of the note takes places over… DECADES. Once again this endeavor, from the point of view of the temporal, is absurd. When seen from the infinite, however, it is sublime. The stillness is captivating. 

Thematically the film is akin to Richard McGuire’s graphic novel Here, which illustrates the goings-on in a specific location for a millennia. Each two page spread signals a time shift in an identical location. Lowery, however, is more narrowly focused on the self-realization of his protagonist. Our hero rejects the light-filled portal and roams under his mortuary sheet mantle. He decides to stay in the metaphorical foyer of the present world. He now has the comfort of physically experiencing his familiar surroundings, but without the agency to meaningfully participate in the drama. Think of Emily’s return to earth in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Lowery’s ghost discovers the same disappointment as Wilder’s Emily going back as a spectator to her own twelfth birthday party. Being dead amongst the living is as much fun as being alive in a sea of corpses. 

“Living in the moment” is an ideal philosophy when faced with the conundrum of being happy in a ruthlessly uncertain world. The Gospel of Matthew ask us to consider the lilies of the field “that toil not.” Be in a playful excursion, rather than lost in the drudgery of the treadmill. In this mindset the incidental, rather than the momentous, becomes extraordinary. Sadly our heroes paradigm shift occurs in the afterlife. Our ghost fixates on what the living would consider obscure passing moments; a small embrace, an empty room suddenly filled with his girlfriend devouring food to drown her sorry, the never-ending quest to dig out the mysterious note…. A living being might focus on hallowed moments such as births, graduations, promotions, holiday dinners, romantic first encounters…. But from the eternal balcony, life is made of less showy stuff. If one of these specters kept a photo album it might be filled with images of empty rooms or people meandering at insignificant moments.  It is endless, forgetful movements which take center stage. Even the revelation, or lack of discovery, of the contents of the note, expose the larger force of life/death at work. In the end the ghost reads the note and that triggers…. A disappearance. What does this mean?

Lowery carefully avoids weighing in on greater meaning. This is a sketch of a foyer, rather than a depiction of heaven or hell or Hades or the larger circle of life. This film is not a book of revelations or even a book of the dead. He eschews heroism for the quotidian. Our “hero” is an everyman confronting the everyday. Our contemporary way of life has little time for reflection. In this context an “average Joe” is suddenly cast into the waiting room of life. He chooses to metaphorically stare at the ceiling. The door to the rest of the journey is before him, yet he stays in the never-ending dead-end loop of what has gone before. This brings to mind the Beatles lyric in Nowhere Man: “doesn’t have a point of view, knows not where he’s going to. Isn’t he a bit like you and me.” The unfortunate punishment for those who refuse to move on… the exponential growth of feelings of displacement. Angry ghosts are broken people who ignore root causes and lash out at those in front of them. Poltergeists are road-rage drivers, not supernatural incarnations of evil. 

Strangely our protagonist actually encounters another ghost who is less angry, but equally confused. She is adorned in a fancier sheet, suggesting an older woman. They discuss things telepathically. She is a character out of Samuel Beckett’s existential masterpiece, Waiting for Godot. Our hero asks her what she is doing. She is waiting for something, but can’t remember the details. The moment of release for both ghosts come out of the ether or more precisely as part of the ether. Their sheets collapse and they are gone. What was in the note? What was it that triggered their decision to start the journey elsewhere? These are questions for the living. Logical meaning is reserved for temporal space, reality is opaque. There is a wonderful moment where a character, billed as “the prognosticator”, gives an absurd, albeit accurate, prediction. He gives a pompous monologue to a crowded party. Everyone is going to die and everything is meaningless. Our hero ghost weighs in with the counter argument. He blows the house’s fuse. The party falls into spooky darkness. 

The ability to come out of the darkness and be in the moment is not for everyone. To fully understand life’s meaning, or lack thereof, is reserved for those who choose to overcome the shadow of distraction. Like many truths it is unpalatable to most people. A Ghost Story’s box office was minuscule. Then again, so was the budget. It is unfortunate, however, this small gem failed to catch on in the same manner as other low budget horror films such as The Blair Witch Project. Then again this could never be a movie for a general audience. Thornton Wilder puts it best in his answer to Emily’s question in Our Town:

EMILY: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?"

STAGE MANAGER: "No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some.” 

Lowery knows “that undiscovered country” is all too familiar. It turns out that “conscience does make cowards of us all”, even after death.  In the end A Ghost Story is a real horror movie. You need not fear darkness. Be scared of not seeing the light. Just ask the man under the sheet. He’s closer than you think.