A Ghost Story begins as mundane as any other film about a couple - the couple, Casey Affleck as C and Rooney Mara as M, lounge around the house going about their daily routines as two adults.
Shortly after the film begins, C's life comes to an end. Writer and Director David Lowery ends C's life not with a murder or some sort of catastrophic event, but with a car accident outside C and M's home. C is now a ghost confined to his home under a white sheet and is invisible to those around him.
Following C's death, Lowery creates some of the most poignant and heartbreaking scenes I've seen in a long time. Whether it's M eating until she is sick or trying to find some way to connect with her dead partner, the film does an excellent job trying to show what it might feel like losing someone you love.
For the first 1/3 of A Ghost Story, Lowery connects with the audience by focusing M's experience as she grieves the loss of her partner. However, when M moves out of their suburban home the film starts to bite off more than it can chew.
The film introduces a number of characters that begin to change the tone of the story. For the remainder of the film, A Ghost Story becomes much louder with its futuristic and existential ideas. The 2nd and 3rd act ultimately has the film stray away from its core focus: love, loss and death.
The film ends with us experiencing C's journey through time with a story line with many resemblances to recent science fiction films like Arrival and Interstellar. It's here that A Ghost Story loses its impact due to Lowery's attempt to make some grand statement about how vast (or possibly minute) the universe is.
A Ghost Story had the potential to be a great film about human existence, but Lowery only successfully scratched the surface. What we end up with is a film that brings the same answers to the table as so many other films have done in the past - Lowery just puts a sheet over your eyes to fool you.
Shortly after the film begins, C's life comes to an end. Writer and Director David Lowery ends C's life not with a murder or some sort of catastrophic event, but with a car accident outside C and M's home. C is now a ghost confined to his home under a white sheet and is invisible to those around him.
Following C's death, Lowery creates some of the most poignant and heartbreaking scenes I've seen in a long time. Whether it's M eating until she is sick or trying to find some way to connect with her dead partner, the film does an excellent job trying to show what it might feel like losing someone you love.
For the first 1/3 of A Ghost Story, Lowery connects with the audience by focusing M's experience as she grieves the loss of her partner. However, when M moves out of their suburban home the film starts to bite off more than it can chew.
The film introduces a number of characters that begin to change the tone of the story. For the remainder of the film, A Ghost Story becomes much louder with its futuristic and existential ideas. The 2nd and 3rd act ultimately has the film stray away from its core focus: love, loss and death.
The film ends with us experiencing C's journey through time with a story line with many resemblances to recent science fiction films like Arrival and Interstellar. It's here that A Ghost Story loses its impact due to Lowery's attempt to make some grand statement about how vast (or possibly minute) the universe is.
A Ghost Story had the potential to be a great film about human existence, but Lowery only successfully scratched the surface. What we end up with is a film that brings the same answers to the table as so many other films have done in the past - Lowery just puts a sheet over your eyes to fool you.