We only know our lead character by one letter (which, to my recollection, he's never referred to as such one-screen), C (Casey Affleck). He is an aspiring musician who lives a simple life with his girlfriend, M (Rooney Mara) in this old house that he's fascinated by. The two's relationship is immediately established in a naturalistic manner, as they're not people in the throes of passion that come in the early days of a relationship, nor are they constantly fighting as their relationship is obviously coming to a close. They come across as normal people, exemplified by a softly touching scene of them sleeping together in bed after they heard a strange noise in their house, exchanging small bits of affection (nose rubs, light kisses) that lend a sense of security to each other. It's a beautiful tranquil depiction of love.
We do not see the car crash that kills C. That is not what is important to this tale. How you get to be dead is inconsequential compared to what he does once he goes to the other side. After M see's his body on a gurney in a morgue, she leaves the room and...the sheet covering his body moves. It gets up, starts walking around with only two eye holes to see, revealing this is the ghostly form of C. He never speaks, he never makes a sound, he only goes back to his home as an apparition whose unable to let go of the one he loves nor the house he's so fixated on. He stands in the corners of a location he once called home, watching the woman he once called his love. And that's only the beginning of the massive sprawling journey C will now go on as a ghost.
Indie filmmaker David Lowery (who helmed last year's incredible Pete's Dragon remake) is the one responsible for writing and directing this motion picture and one of the best flourishes of his directing is how he frames the shots of C exploring his home. The way the camera is positioned in certain shots, our focus is clearly supposed to be on mortal characters, like M, that he's observing, with C lingering in the background as a supporting force that's sometimes out of focus, off to the side of the frame or even partially cut out of the shot. This is a brilliant move for two reasons; it allows the actions of characters like M that C is watching to get center stage and get a greater emotional impact while it also emphasizes, on a visual level, how out of place C is in this mortal realm now that he's a ghost. He doesn't belong here, hence why, in many scenes where he shares the screen with mortal characters, those flesh-and-blood people take precedence in terms of blocking.
That's only one way A Ghost Story really manages to wow on a visual level. There's a ton of shots in this movie that convey this beautiful sense of melancholy, a natural tonal match to the story. This atmosphere is able to be so so beautifully captured in A Ghost Story by way of its decision to film many of scenes depicting mundane human actions in single-takes that go on for elongated periods of time. This way, the emotions being conveyed by the characters and their movements can fully resonate without any potentially obtrusive cuts getting in the way. It's a filming style evocative of directors like Bela Tarr and Chantal Akerman that fits this particular motion picture like a particularly cozy glove.
This is especially true in the scenes depicting M coping with the tidal wave of emotions she's swept in after her husband dies. Just letting the camera stick on M while she does something like eat a pie, all the while getting more and more visibly emotionally distraught, becomes truly impactful when we get to see this process unfold in real-time in one continuous shot. This particular scene is helped by how Rooney Mara is utterly devastating in her authentic portrayal of a person trying to come to terms with a death of a loved one. There are these moments right after C passes away where she has this vacant longing stare in her eyes that's haunting in the way it perfectly captures the emotions of this painful experience in just one facial expression.
Meanwhile, the lead actor of the piece, Casey Affleck, whose huddled under a sheet for the vast majority of his screen time, is stuck in a role that sounds like the stuff a subpar Funny Or Die sketch would be made out of but it instead turns into a tremendous turn that shows his gift as an actor on a physical level. With no face to speak of, and his hands and feet obscured, Affleck must rely on body language to convey the large share of his feelings in ghost form and he does a remarkable job creating so much tangible pathos out of such a restrained role. While we're talking about his character, I'll also note that I love how C's ghost form looks, particularly in the eyes, which are cut in a way that suggests an inherently forlorn expression. I also don't know how they were able to keep Affleck's eyes from appearing in the eyeholes but I do love how C's ghost just has these blank black eyes like classic cartoon depictions of ghosts, a design choice that heightens the inhuman nature of this form he's taken.
David Lowery's script takes these two performances and creates a riveting story for them to inhabit, one whose scope slowly expands as the tale progresses. Not to get into heavy spoiler territory (though the trailer gives some flashes of later plot details away), but M is not the only person that inhabits the house she and C used to call home and the ghostly form of C gets the chance to watch others over the years come in and inhabit what used to be his domicile. It's fascinating just how Lowery's script is able to retain its more restrained tendencies even when the script begins to enlarge its scope. It does help that the theme of contemplating about what kind of impact we can have on other people even when we're gone in the long run does become a prominent fixture of later sections of the film and that concept feels like a perfect companion for the already introduced ideas floating around in the story.
Plus, these ideas are probed with a delicate human touch. The same emphasis on naturalistic depictions of human interactions that inform the aforementioned bedroom scene with C and M also comes through in later depictions of the various people that C views as a ghost. Also carried over throughout the entire motion picture is this pervasively haunting tone that truly struck me as hard to shake and beautifuly executed.
A Ghost Story is many things. It's very much a film about a ghost, one who does ghostly things to people. It's also an extended contemplation about the long-term value of our actions and coping with death among other things. It's, like I said, a movie that likely won't be on everyone's level, but for me, A Ghost Story was an outstanding piece of cinema that constantly surprised and moved me with its ambitious nature. Underneath all of its well-executed unique visual trappings (such as a highly unorthodox aspect ratio) lies a beautifully told melancholy tale whose evocative atmosphere and imagery resonate on an incredibly powerful tale.
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