REVIEW: "A Ghost Story," Pretentious On the Surface, Proves Emotional in Mesmerizing Meditation on Grief, Time and Memory

One of this year's most striking and incredibly-effecting on-screen images (and its most simple yet distinct) is the sight of recent Oscar-winning actor Casey Affleck wearing a ghost sheet. But what could've easily been used as a cheap and silly gimmick--director David Lowery has confessed that it is a goofy image--instead becomes (and encompasses) a poetic meditation of loss, love and memory. In fact, Lowery makes the most of A Ghost Story's low-budget filmmaking capabilities (reportedly used off the funds from his live-action version of Pete's Dragon last year) that it's hard not to be mesmerized by the final product.

For one thing, the 4:3 aspect ratio (the image below) is used as if we're watching home movies of forgotten times. The translucent light effects on walls in certain scenes illustrate apparitions. The same goes for flickering lights in certain eerie moments. Quick cuts suggest the passage of time (a Terrence Malick influence, perhaps), including smoke and fog effects suggesting a change of seasons, lighting, and settings. If you pay attention to the credits, they state that Weta Digital was involved with the visual effects of this otherwise low-budget film. More specifically, several shots are very long, intimate and emotion-driven, including a now-arguably-famous scene of Mara scarfing down a pie, tears running down the end of her nose. Overall, this is simple, experimental, and great filmmaking.

Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck

Affleck and Mara (who both starred in Lowery's 2013 debut feature Ain't Them Bodies Saints) are riveting from frame one. They play a couple living in a small home in Texas. Affleck's musician C dies unexpectedly in a car crash one morning, leaving Mara's book-reading M devastated, but returns in the form of a physical ghost (a traditional sheet used like a costume with black eye holes a la "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"). M eventually does leave the house (with memorial notes left in the walls), while C's "ghost" stays, along with a piano and a neighbor "ghost," until other residents come in (a Spanish family, a philosopher, construction workers and corporate workers).

There is a sense of eeriness at times, in Daniel Hart's haunting score and in the direction of C's "ghost". The way he stares does trigger a certain spookiness a la Michael Myers or any famous horror movie character. But this film is not a horror. It's a drama. And a human one, at that. Many viewers will likely see this as a secular view of the afterlife, on the other hand. But it's more akin to The Tree of Life than, say, Beetlejuice, what with the aforementioned Malick influences of the passage of time, and images of the cosmos and stars. And Affleck (along with Tom Hardy's performance in Dunkirk) has the most challenging and effecting body-language of any film role this year, from the different postures he makes, along with the movements of his arms and hands.

Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara

There's not a lot of spiritual discussion here, save for one scene where an apparently pessimistic man theorizes and argues logic and science over God and believes everything will be lost and forgotten one. (C apparently reacts against this, what with the flashing lights and the implied rubbled aftermath that results.) In an early scene, C has the option of heading through a door light in the hospital, but chooses to miss it (it closes momentarily) and goes to a different "exit"--his old home.

The way the film plays with time and how it does so is very unexpected and thought-provoking. What is this character doing in this time? Does there seem to be a quick passage of time apart from reality? A quick transition to a 19th-Century pilgrim family building a home finds a little girl writing a note and leaving it under a rock (like M). And a flashback suggests that C didn't want to move, apparently attached to the house's history. Perhaps he was already a ghost before he physically became one? The ghost (no matter how absurd it looks) can poetically represent the memory of a loved one who has passed, and his/her presence in that place they left their legacy at. And if you stay through the credits, you'll hear quiet and misty effects such as winds and fields, suggesting a form of meditation and memory. I haven't seen film credits like this since, perhaps, the 1990 re-release of Fantasia, as well as Cast Away (2000) and No Country For Old Men (2007).

Perhaps no film this year has challenged or provoked me more than A Ghost Story. At its heart, it's a story about moving on. Not just from homes, but also from heartache and from tragedy.

REVIEW: "The Book of Henry" Tries to Balance Tones and Genres Towards a Divisive and Questionable Conclusion

A title like The Book of Henry sounds like an Old Testament story, or perhaps an untold folklore tale. Nevertheless, it refers to a book with illustrations, notes and details by the film's title character in carrying out a specific plan to help somebody else.

This feature film from a screenplay by Greg Hurtwizz (reportedly twenty years in the making!) and director Colin Trevorrow (2015's Jurassic World and 2012's Safety Not Guaranteed) certainly doesn't lack for ambition and creativity. Yet, a majority of critics and audiences have not been impressed, calling it a "cynical" film.

So, what are we to make of The Book of Henry?

On the plus side, for one, it's incredibly well-cast. The story follows an eleven-year-old boy genius (Midnight Special's Jaeden Lieberher) raising his younger brother Peter (Room's Jacob Tremblay) and single mother Susan (Naomi Watts), and eventually coming up with a plan to help his next-door neighbor and classmate Christina (Sia doppelganger Maddie Ziegler) from her abusive stepfather (Dean Morris).

The opening illustrations in Henry's titular "book" (along with Michael Giacchino's effective piano score) bring us into the wonder, creativity and complexity of his world. Did I mention his bedroom wallpaper looks like it's from outer space, and that he has a massive treehouse in the backyard woods? Imagine if the Baudelaire orphans lived in present day New Jersey. There's even a montage where Henry makes specific notes in his book (which will apparently be important later). These types of elements (along with Henry handling the family's finances) add some incoherence, implausibility, and a strange sense of omnipresence to the story.

But the family is broken in a lot of ways. There's no backstory on Susan and her previous marriage, with no mentions at all of her ex-husband nor on what led Susan to be the way she is. It's easy to understand she's an aspiring storybook illustrator, yet she chooses to work a minimum wage job at the local diner. She doesn't seem to be a very good influence, and neither does Henry, sometimes, considering she plays violent video games and occasionally swears in front of her children.

And yet, she fears going on without Henry, like he's a guardian angel. "You're the best part of me, Henry. . . . I don't know how to be a mother," to which Henry replies, "I never taught you that." If looked at from at certain angle, this is part of what the film is about, at least for Susan's character.

Before this development (and after an unexpected tragedy), life is sad, lonely, and dreary (much like Christina's apparent one, which feels one-dimensional). Peter's influence and wise words cut through, though (much like Linus to Susan's Charlie Brown): "Don't do what Henry would do, Mom. Do what you would do." Is it any wonder Jacob Tremblay is such an admirable and gifted young actor?

Trevorrow considers the film a freedom of artistic expression, as well as an experimental meshing of different genres. In this case, The Book of Henry could be classified as a coming-of-age family/mystery/thriller with a motif of not leaving things undone, including familial and relational issues.

But perhaps the film tries to be too many things at once. For one thing, it takes a critical and unexpected (even traumatic) turn halfway through, regarding Henry's meds, seizures, and his book. There also seems to be a heavy theme of childishness versus being an adult and moving on. (Commendable, as a theme, but exaggerated nonetheless.) And what are we to make of a climactic talent show darkly juxtaposed with an intense (and impending violent) act. The ultimate goal is disturbing, and reiterates why many critics and reviewers have called the film "cynical".

Says Henry during a pivotal scene, "Violence is not the worst thing in the world. It's apathy." What is violence? Google Search describes it as "behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something." On the flip side, the same site describes apathy as a "lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern." With that in mind, Henry's concern for Christina and her safety is admirable. But is a lack of interest or concern really worst than physically hurting someone? It certainly makes for great discussion, especially a biblical-related one.

In Safety Not Guaranteed, there are characters who want to fix parts of their past. In The Book of Henry, there are characters who consider what they want to leave behind as a legacy and how they want to affect the future. During a school presentation, Henry proclaims, "Our legacy is not built on how many commas we have in our bank account. It's who we're lucky enough to have in our lives on this side of the dirt." For audiences, that's good inspiration in choosing to be what they each want to be. And as storytellers (and many of us are), there are many ways to tell them, even though they can get muddled and aren't always the best to hear. So, overall, maybe this is not the best way to tell this particular story, at least the finished film version.

REVIEW: "Split" Reestablishes M. Night Shyamalan's Career, But Showcases Disturbing Elements of Abduction, Creepiness and Multiple Personality Disorder

The latest psychological thriller from M. Night Shyamalan (1999's The Sixth Sense, 2015's The Visit) opens with a girl named Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), sitting apart from everybody else at a classmate's birthday party. She catches a ride with two other girls and their dad, only to be abducted in the parking lot by a mysterious and creepy man.

What follows split-screen opening credits is an abandoned room where the girls are held hostage. Everything we begin to understand about Casey is in her eyes and her reactions to the horrors going on. It also shows a difference between what she's thinking and what the other two girls, Claire and Marcia (Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula), are thinking. "The only way we're going to get out of this is if we all go crazy on this guy," they say.

James McAvoy

They soon discover their kidnapper has multiple personality disorder (23 different personalities, in fact, if you've seen any trailers or ads for this movie). We only get to see a few of these "personalities," including germaphobe "Dennis," model "Barry," motherly "Patricia" (the strangest of them all), and nine-year-old "Hedwig," all sprouted from the traumatic mind of the real identity named "Kevin". They warn the girls of a mysterious being that is apparently coming for them as "sacred food" (talk about ancient ritualistic fear), and the girls go through many escape attempts involving air vents, hallways, mental games with the childish "Hedwig," "windows," and walkie-talkies, before "the Beast" (whatever it is) emerges.

James McAvoy showcases a masterclass of acting with all of the personalities on display, with surprising levels of wit, cunning, and tragedy--not just creepiness and horror--beneath the surface. Credit equally goes to up-and-coming actress Anya Taylor-Joy (who broke out in the sleeper horror-thriller The Witch a year ago) as Casey. Her character's fears and doubts turn out to mask a childhood family trauma, as well as a growing courage in a fight for survival. "It's about whether you can or cannot outsmart the animal," Casey's dad tells her in a flashback lesson in deer hunting.

Anya Taylor-Joy

The third central character here is psychiatrist Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley, who also appeared in Shyamalan's The Happening). According to one of her neighbors, Dr. Fletcher treats her patients "like they have supernatural powers or something." Her response: "They are what they believe they are." In other words, she believes that supernatural abilities walk the earth, similar to Elijah Price's belief that superheroes walk the earth in Unbreakable (Shyamalan's sophomoric feature from 2000). At the same time, she does believe "there must be limits to what a human being can become." In a scene where she makes a Skype call to the University to Paris, Dr. Fletcher states, "Have these individuals, through their suffering, unlocked the possibilities of their mind?"

Hence, the two central characters, "Kevin" and Casey, have gone through (and are masking, in their own ways) suffering and trauma, whereas Dr. Fletcher works to help at least one of them understand who they are and to find the humanity that's been "out of the light". Her approach to helping her patients is admirable but questionable (i.e., inviting them into her home, and even visiting one of them at his).

Betty Buckley

The film also touches on what abuse (and self-belief) does to people, and how it keeps them "out of the light," sometimes for long periods of time, whether it's Casey's relationship with her uncle growing up or how Kevin used "the Beast" to both frighten people and cope with his mother's implied abuse. Says "Dennis," "He [the Beast] believes we're extraordinary." He adds, "Only through pain can you achieve your greatness." A twisted, misguided, and tragic worldview, if ever there was one. Plus, the element involving "Dennis" forcing the girls to remove their clothes bit by bit (due to germs) bothers me, as I find objectifying teenage girls very disturbing in itself. And when the Beast finally emerges, it's not cheap or laughable as many would expect, in spite of previous Shyamalan films. It's downright scary, especially when elements of cannibalism and shotguns come into play. (Not really a twist, per se, just a Hitchcockian tool for suspense.)

No, the real twist Shyamalan pulls off here is how he subtly and unexpectedly connects this film to the same universe as a previous film involving people with superpowers and superhuman capabilities (including a surprise cameo from that film's star). It could even set up Casey as a potential new "hero" in Shyamalan's next project that begins filming this fall.

REVIEWING CLASSICS: "Misery" (1990)

Two of author Stephen King's bestselling books are being released as movies these next two months, one being this weekend's The Dark Tower (based on the series of western/science-fiction adventures, starring Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba); the other being It (featuring Swedish actor Bill Skarsgard as a horrifying new version of Pennywise the Clown). Now would be as good a time as any to look back on one of the rare critically-acclaimed features based on King's work, courtesy director Rob Reiner (1986's Stand By Me).

In Misery (published in 1987, and made into 1990 movie), novelist Paul Sheldon (played by James Caan) gets in a car accident in a Colorado snowstorm, and is soon rescued and nursed back to health by a local nurse, Annie Wilkes (played by Kathy Bates, who won an Oscar for her role), who claims to be his "number one fan". Sheldon has become successful through a series of romance novels. As the film opens, he's finishing his latest novel and decides to kill his main character, Misery Chastain, to end the series to move on to other projects. "I never meant for her to be my life," Sheldon tells us. But when Annie reads the unfinished manuscript, she is less than thrilled and goes from obsessive to psychotic and trigger-happy in an instant.

James Caan

Kathy Bates

The screenplay by William Goldman (1976's All the President's Men and 1987's The Princess Bride) stands as a brilliant example for how to structure an effective story, no matter the genre. The first act establishes the central characters (Paul and Annie) and their motives, as well as who Paul's agent (played by Lauren Becall) is, and who the local sheriff (played by Richard Farnsworth) is.

The first plot point occurs when Annie reads Paul's unfinished manuscript, and crazily goes from loving Paul to hating him. The second act is a game of survival as Annie forces Paul to rewrite the story and its ending, and even creates a writing "studio" for him--a creepy one, at that. (The image of the match and lighter before this act is chilling.) The tour of Annie's home, including her stash of books and newspaper clippings under the scrapbook title of "Memory Lane," reveals chilling revelations and misguided spiritual worldviews, while juxtaposing the subplot involving the police search and investigation as Paul's days of writing pass.

And, of course, there's that famous hobbling scene (possibly the second plot point). This scene, for the record, is one of the few classic movie moments I just can't look at. (It'll scare you for life!) Images of a kitchen knife, typewriter, and matches? That's nothing compared to this scene.

The third act, we'll just say, gets really twisted (and justifies the film's R-rating). What results (and still holds up) is a chilling interpretation of celebrity obsession and fandamonium that carries into the social media age from the last decade-and-a-half. Just don't get me started again on the hobbling.