My love for A Ghost Story was hard won, and it’s a tricky film to recommend. David Lowery front-loads his love-from-beyond-the-grave story with Terence Malick’s worst habits (yes, you really have to watch blank-eyed Rooney Mara eat pie for five minutes), and mainstream moviegoers who reach the half-way point are right to expect a medal (and coffee). Watch out for the party scene, though, which blows up the narrative like 2001’s “star gate” sequence did. From here, Lowery forces us to question everything, including his film’s very presentation: shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio with fuzzy, rounded edges, cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo’s secretly grand compositions at once evoke slide-show nostalgia and the predicament of Lowery’s titular, sheet-draped spirit (Casey Affleck), who is confined by shifting but eternal walls of regret—or, as we see them, vertical black bars. This movie will never leave you, as long as you don’t leave it.
Listen to Kicking the Seat Podcast #239 to hear Ian and Keeping it Reel's David Fowlie conjur up some thoughts on A Ghost Story!