‘A Ghost Story’
Directed by David Lowery
Starring Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara
Rated R
Stillness pervades “A Ghost Story,” a movie that utilizes a low-fi exterior to impart a story that gets at something deep and elemental about the ephemeral nature of existence.
From writer-director David Lowery, the picture follows a husband (Casey Affleck) who is killed in a car accident and returns home to console his wife (Rooney Mara), hidden all the while under the white sheet placed on him in the morgue. There’s not much more in the way of a plot; simply scenes of the husband observing, helplessly, furtively, and with increasing distance as his lonely wife experiences the many complicated stages of grief.
The movie achieves a devastating impact, fully capturing the sadness of these lost souls.
Working within the constraints of a square aspect ratio that narrows the frame and brings a pinpoint focus to the treatment of the characters, the filmmaker and his stars evoke the ways those we’ve lost live on in our daily lives, their memories becoming attached to the places and things we associate with them.
It’s a movie about absence and death that’s filled with presence and life, a haunted movie that finds comfort in eternity.
