Perhaps the most audacious touch of A Ghost Story, which opens today at the Landmark Century and the River East 21, is writer-director David Lowery’s decision to forgo the use of special effects in portraying the movie’s ghosts. Lowery depicts ghosts with actors standing under bedsheets, bringing to mind cheap Halloween costumes from childhood. The ghosts aren’t at all scary—rather, they seem ordinary, even a little pathetic. One can’t recognize the ghosts’ emotions, since their only facial features are provided by eyeholes in the sheets. As a result, they come across as unchanging, impotent presences, a little like crudely drawn cartoon characters. The effect can be slightly funny, but it’s ultimately sad. These ghosts are unable to express much of anything.
Time becomes a principal theme as A Ghost Story enters its second half. (Readers who haven’t seen the film may want to stop reading here; spoilers follow.) Soon after the single mother and her kids move out of the house, Affleck observes a party being thrown by the next homeowners. Playing one of the party guests, Will Oldham delivers an extended monologue about the possible fate of humanity after the collapse of civilization. (It’s probably the best acting Oldham has done.) With this scene, Lowery harkens back to the images of the cosmos that appear early on in the film. Affleck now seems to represent all people as seen from a cosmic vantage point—a fleeting presence defined by its inability to make an impact on the universe as a whole.
