Alright, I can see why and how people would interpenetrate this film as pretentious but bare with it. This film obviously focuses on the grieving stage but more so from the perspective of the deceased which is quite an innovative angle.
Parts I liked: The film uses creative camera angles with plenty of long shots taken from still angles, and from what I've read, there were many shots that only took one take to film. The camera adds to the dreary, depressing atmosphere David Lowery wants you to feel, after all this is a film about bereavement. Affleck and Mara deliver a solid, believably performance when they're both on camera together, which is no surprise as I believe Affleck is fantastic in all of his works. The ghost itself (also played by Affleck) is an interesting character to read. When watching I did start to feel a connection to the poor ghost who is left in a time lapse. There are some tear jerker scenes when it's evident the ghost (Affleck) just want's to comfort his bereaved wife. The ghost also shows anger when it witnesses it's wife close to another man. All of these aspects added to the character development of the friendly ghostly character which kept me interested throughout the movie. I noticed a lot of people are not a fan of the long scenes (pie scene) but I felt it added to the immersion of what life is like after losing someone close to you. I liked the pie scene in particular, it's a slow burner where you can see Mara's characters emotions building up as she starts to eat more and more aggressively until she ends up being sick, all the while our poor ghostly character watches over her. I felt this captured the numbness and pain Mara's character is feeling in this scene. As a final point for the positives, I felt the sound track captured the mood of the film really well and added to my experience.
Things I didn't like: About halfway through the movie I started to lose interest slightly, mainly because the story leaves Mara's character behind and focuses on the location, i.e the house. I felt this took away the sentimental value of ghosty and Mara's characters connection, I mean, surly if ghosty can walk from the hospital to the house he could follow Mara's character, right? I didn't really care about how the house was knocked down or the squatters party scene, it's like the director wanted the audiences attention to be shifted from Mara's character to the house almost? I'm sure others will disagree with me but this is where I found my attention at this point in the film. When Mara's character comes back in I was sort of like 'Oh yeah, I remember her'. I felt the film brought out more of my emotions when it was ghosty following Mara's character.
Conclusion: This film captures the struggles of someone graving fantastically and offers a unique angle from the dead's point of view which I really liked. It has plenty of scenes which you may need to bring the tissues out for, especially if you have just recently lost a loved one. I felt it lost it's way slightly and became a bit boring, however the story didn't take away from the cinematography which I think is great. The film requires you to feel a certain degree of empathy to the ghost to really feel what David Lowery was trying to achieve when filming.
My overall score is 7 out of 10. I don't believe it deserves to be slated, however I can see why people would dislike this film. It's definitely worth a watch, if you're 50/50 about it, give it the first 40 mins and see how you feel.
Also just wanted to drop in that I thought the casting of Kesha as the other ghost is probably the most bizarre cameos I have ever seen.
Parts I liked: The film uses creative camera angles with plenty of long shots taken from still angles, and from what I've read, there were many shots that only took one take to film. The camera adds to the dreary, depressing atmosphere David Lowery wants you to feel, after all this is a film about bereavement. Affleck and Mara deliver a solid, believably performance when they're both on camera together, which is no surprise as I believe Affleck is fantastic in all of his works. The ghost itself (also played by Affleck) is an interesting character to read. When watching I did start to feel a connection to the poor ghost who is left in a time lapse. There are some tear jerker scenes when it's evident the ghost (Affleck) just want's to comfort his bereaved wife. The ghost also shows anger when it witnesses it's wife close to another man. All of these aspects added to the character development of the friendly ghostly character which kept me interested throughout the movie. I noticed a lot of people are not a fan of the long scenes (pie scene) but I felt it added to the immersion of what life is like after losing someone close to you. I liked the pie scene in particular, it's a slow burner where you can see Mara's characters emotions building up as she starts to eat more and more aggressively until she ends up being sick, all the while our poor ghostly character watches over her. I felt this captured the numbness and pain Mara's character is feeling in this scene. As a final point for the positives, I felt the sound track captured the mood of the film really well and added to my experience.
Things I didn't like: About halfway through the movie I started to lose interest slightly, mainly because the story leaves Mara's character behind and focuses on the location, i.e the house. I felt this took away the sentimental value of ghosty and Mara's characters connection, I mean, surly if ghosty can walk from the hospital to the house he could follow Mara's character, right? I didn't really care about how the house was knocked down or the squatters party scene, it's like the director wanted the audiences attention to be shifted from Mara's character to the house almost? I'm sure others will disagree with me but this is where I found my attention at this point in the film. When Mara's character comes back in I was sort of like 'Oh yeah, I remember her'. I felt the film brought out more of my emotions when it was ghosty following Mara's character.
Conclusion: This film captures the struggles of someone graving fantastically and offers a unique angle from the dead's point of view which I really liked. It has plenty of scenes which you may need to bring the tissues out for, especially if you have just recently lost a loved one. I felt it lost it's way slightly and became a bit boring, however the story didn't take away from the cinematography which I think is great. The film requires you to feel a certain degree of empathy to the ghost to really feel what David Lowery was trying to achieve when filming.
My overall score is 7 out of 10. I don't believe it deserves to be slated, however I can see why people would dislike this film. It's definitely worth a watch, if you're 50/50 about it, give it the first 40 mins and see how you feel.
Also just wanted to drop in that I thought the casting of Kesha as the other ghost is probably the most bizarre cameos I have ever seen.