David Lowery’s “A Ghost Story” is a hauntingly, captivating film. It’s fresh concept, creative and poignant. Recommended!
TITLE: A Ghost Story
FILM RELEASE: 2017
DURATION: 92 Minutes
BLU-RAY DISC INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition (1:78:1), English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish Subtitles
COMPANY: Lionsgate
RATED: R
RELEASE DATE: October 3, 2017
Directed by David Lowery
Screenplay by David Lowery
Produced by Adam Donaghey, Toby Halbrooks, James M. Robinson
Executive Producer: David Maddox
Co-Producer: Liz Franke
Music: Daniel Hart
Cinematography: Andrew Droz Palermo
Edited by David Lowery
Casting by Tisha Blood, Matthew West Taylor
Production Design by Jade Healy, Tom Walker
Art Direction: David Pink
Set Decoration by Judd Myers, Adam Willis
Costume Design by Annell Brodeur
Starring:
Casey Affleck as C
Rooney Mara as M
Liz Franke as Linda
Kesha as Spirit Girl
Sonia Acevedo as Maria
Carlos Bermudez as Carlos
Yasmina Gutierrez as Yasmina
Academy Award winner Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara star as a young couple who – after being separated by loss – discover an eternal connection and a love that is infinite. An unforgettable meditation on love and grief, A GHOST STORY emerges ecstatic and surreal – a wholly unique experience that lingers long after the credits roll.
From David Lowery, director of “Pete’s Dragon” and “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” comes his supernatural film “A Ghost Story”.
Starring Casey Affleck (“Gone Baby Gone”, “Interstellar”, “Manchester by the Sea”), Rooney Mara (“The Social Network”, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, “Side Effects”) and more, the film is an interesting fresh take on ghosts, but also a film about love and grieving.
And now “A Ghost Story” will be available on Blu-ray in October 2017 courtesy of Lionsgate.
“A Ghost Story” revolves around a couple, a musician, C (portrayed by Casey Affleck) and his wife M (portrayed by Rooney Mara).
The two move into a house and while sleeping, were awaken by a noise from the piano. But when they go to the living room to check, they don’t see anyone there.
The two are a couple deeply in love but one day, C is killed in a car accident right near the front of his house. He is taken to the morgue for identification and after his wife identifies him, we see C’s body awaken as a ghost (with a white sheet over the body, yet no one can see him or the sheet).
C, now as a ghost, returns to his home and watches his wife grieving over his death. He begins to watch over her for days, weeks and months.
While looking out the window, he sees another ghost looking outside the window and she says she is waiting for someone, but not sure who.
As C continues to watch over his wife, he sees her with a new man and jealous, he starts throwing books off the bookshelf and it opens up to a passage that upsets her. She then begins to listen to a song he created for her long ago and she eventually leaves the home and moves out. She places a small piece of paper inside a crack in the corner of the wall and paints the crack to seal it.
And his mission as a ghost is to peel away the paint to try and retrieve the note that she wrote.
But as C tries to do this, a new family, a single mother with her two children move in. And as this family is happy, C starts frightening the family and trying to force them to move out of the home and a new group of people move in.
But we see the house become aged and neglected and eventually, the home and the home next door are destroyed. And as he and the other ghost stand on the foundation, the other ghost gives up waiting for whoever she is waiting for and disappears.
Meanwhile, a new skyscraper is built on the foundation and the whole country land where he once lived in, is now a metropolis with big buildings and cities.
C decides to walk off the ledge and fall off the building but then he is taken way back in the past and watches 19th century settlers building their home on the land and must forever relive for many years until he reaches to the present-time period of watching when he was alive with his wife.
VIDEO:
“A Ghost Story” is presented in 1080p High Definition (1:78:1). Picture quality is magnificent as closeups showcase incredible detail, while I liked how lighting was employed in the film. I saw no sign of banding or artifact issues. The film looks absolutely great on Blu-ray!
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“A Ghost Story” is presented in English 5.1 DTS-HD MA. Lossless audio, plays upon silence, then some dialogue with the music by C and of course some sequences where C becomes mischievous and starts throwing things around, those sequences utilizing the surround channels. But for the most part, lossless audio is crystal clear.
Subtitles are in English SDH and Spanish.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“A Ghost Story” comes with the following special features:
- Audio Commentary – Featuring an audio commentary with Director David Lowery, Cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo, Production Designer Jade Healy and Composer Daniel Hart.
- A Ghost Story and the Inevitable Passing of Time – (20:20) A featurette shot at the haunted Sedamsville Rectory with the lights closed and shot with night vision.
- A Composer’s Story – (4:35) A featurette about the making of the music for the film with interviews with composer Daniel Hart.
- Deleted Scene – (5:56) Featuring a deleted coffee making scene.
- Trailers
EXTRAS:
“A Ghost Story” comes with Blu-ray and UltraViolet code.
“A Ghost Story” was written during a troubling time of David Lowery’s life. A time where he was not feeling good of the future of mankind and thus came the idea of how to create a film that would tackle on those fears.
Having worked with both Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara for his 2013 film “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”, he wanted to work with the two again for a film he made, where he wanted to be creative and try something new.
Would Oscar winning actor Casey Affleck mind wearing a white sheet over him during the entire movie? Would he be able to get Rooney Mara to portray a grieving woman who had lost her one true love?
Having watching “A Ghost Story” several times, this creative take on loss, grief and ghosts is quite unique.
Affleck playing the character of C, a musician who gets into a car accident just right across the street from his home and dies and becomes a ghost. He returns back to the place he lived, which is his home and a place where he can watch his wife and be with her.
There is no concept of time, he just watches but he does still feel. May it be the jealousy when he sees his wife with another man or wanting to be mischievous, when a family moves into the same home, knowing that he can levitate and knock things around and literally scare a single mother and her two children.
But as he is attached to that place, what happens when the land and the home is demolished to pave way for a new metropolis. Again, there is no concept of time, so you see C seeing how things change and is literally powerless to do anything about it.
He is just a voyeur, a ghost who is left with one mission, and that is to find out what note his wife left inside a crack on the wall.
“A Ghost Story” is no doubt a whimsical film, giving one a new perspective when it comes to a ghost film. While many people may have watched many ghost films and probably the best known about love, lost and trying to help a love one from the afterlife would be Jerry Zucker’s 1990 film, “Ghost”, starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. By no means is this a repeat. Affleck’s C is a ghost that lives on in the same property for many years.
While Rooney Mara’s M is a woman who must grieve and begin life anew. It’s Mara’s performance that I found captivating and real. It’s not easy to portray a life of grief of a loved one, but with her talent and director David Lowery wanting to read Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking” (how she coped when her husband died), everything worked quite well.
A film about a man wearing a white sheet, like a child in Halloween trying to be a ghost, may make one think it would illicit a few laughs, but in the case of “A Ghost Story”, it was hauntingly refreshing, no need for modern visual effects, it was a new take that worked.
The Blu-ray features wonderful picture quality, especially during the close ups. Lossless audio, plays upon silence, then some dialogue with the music by C and of course some sequences where C becomes mischievous and starts throwing things around, those sequences utilizing the surround channels. But for the most part, lossless audio is crystal clear. And there are numerous special features included as well.
Overall, David Lowery’s “A Ghost Story” is a hauntingly, captivating film. It’s fresh concept, creative and poignant. Recommended!
