Photo credit: Bret Curry. Courtesy of A24.
Humanity Hallows Issue 6 Out Now
Pick up your copy on campus or read online
By David Keyworth
What’s it like to be a ghost that no one can see?
In writer-director David Lowery’s new film, it involves a lot of hanging around indoors, watching your ex-lover, a Spanish family and a man in dungarees at a party, who talks at length about the end of the universe.
A Ghost Story is set in modern day Texas. C (Casey Affleck) and M (Rooney Mara) live in a setting that is either idyllic ror just remote, depending on your point of view. Apart from the dawn chorus, and occasionally bumps in the night, nothing disturbs their love nest.
The idyll ends abruptly when C dies in a car crash. But he is not yet ready to rest in peace. He rises up from his morgue-bed and returns to the ranch-style house, wearing just a white sheet – looking like someone who has put minimal effort into their Halloween costume.
The tension from the first half of the film comes from expecting that someone will see him in the house and scream the walls down.
The ghost is mostly a voyeur and through his eyeholes we see M return to the empty house. In one of the most powerful scenes, Rooney Mara sits on the kitchen floor, eating a pie until she becomes sick with grief. It’s a great example of acting and directing which is utterly compelling even though ‘nothing happens’.
In any film which involves long periods without dialogue, the soundtrack plays a crucial role. Daniel Hart’s original score does not disappoint – it is ominous, lyrical and mournful.
In the last section, the film moves into time-travel territory. This produces some stunning cinematography but threatens to take us too far away from the emotional core. There are also some elements of the narrative which I didn’t quite get – for example, the ghost can hold objects but prefers to scratch at a wall with his fingernail.
In the end, though, we return to the domestic setting and the poignant meditation on the way that love and grief are inevitable bedfellows.
A Ghost Story is just over an hour and half long. It has a 12a certificate, although I’m glad I didn’t see it when I was 12-years-old as I think it would have resulted in a few sleepless nights. It is a ‘Scared Sheetless’ production.
David Keyworth is an MA Creative Writing student at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Featured image: Gary Walker Neo-blues soul artist Yellow Days, the stage name of Haslemere’s George van den Broek, returns to Manchester with his seventh album, Rock And A Hard Place, and a live show that proves just how far he has come. Before he steps out, London-based act Brian Nasty warms the room up nicely,…
Featured image and gallery: Sally Stretch The Royston Club perform alongside Overpass and Permanent (Joy) at a sold-out O2 Victoria Warehouse. Welsh indie rock band The Royston Club, school friends who began playing together in 2017, now headline O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester. Touring second album Songs For The Spine, they generate an energetic sold-out…
Featured image: Radical Optimism Album Artwork / Warner Music Radical Optimism was released in May 2024 by Dua Lipa, an album which I have grown to love more and more after every listen, and earning my most-listened-to album on Spotify last year. However, critics had different opinions, with the Huffington Post declaring that it’s “great, but not…
Featured image: Press It’s a spring evening at Manchester Academy 2, and there is a stir of anticipation. An amicable, yet certainly eager crowd flock to the front of the sold-out venue, itching to secure a satisfactory view of the stage. Of course, Balu Brigada are worth the urgency. Formed in 2016 by multi-instrumentalist brothers…
Leave a reply