It’s all about time,” reads the moody grayscale poster for David Lowery’s supernatural drama A Ghost Story. Nothing on the poster seems entirely black or white, except for the abyssal eyeholes in the bedsheet that represents the ghost. The film follows two young lovers, C (Casey Affleck) and M (Rooney Mara), just long enough for us to care about them before C dies in a car wreck. Suddenly draped under a white sheet, its eyeholes empty and brooding, C walks away from whatever ethereal realm awaits him and, unable to let go of his previous existence, wanders back to the house that now holds his grieving partner. For the rest of the film C watches and waits. But why? For what?
At the other extreme lies the scene in which M, still traumatized by C’s death, comes home to a pie dropped off by her landlord. She peels away the foil and picks at the crust, as if she has nothing better to do. She meanders over to the silverware drawer and grabs a fork. Now taking slightly bigger bites, M sits down on the kitchen floor, the camera angle shifting to reveal C’s ghost standing ominously in the background. So begins what feels like the longest single shot in film history, as M grief-eats an entire pie in nine minutes and then throws up.
Directed by David Lowery
