A good movie

Not so long ago, I saw ‘Ain’t Them Bodies Saint’ so I was quite eager to see this directing follow-up from David Lowery, once again starring Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara. Well, it took some guts from Lowery to go for the goofiest depiction of a ghost you could imagine. However, it was apparently not enough and, to make things even more difficult for him, he also picked up the most derivative tittle ever. As a result, even though it was another critical success, it didn’t get much love after all which was hardly surprising. Well, as far as I was concerned, the damned thing was actually often quite spellbinding. Indeed, it wasn’t scary like 1000’s of horror movies dealing with ghosts and it wasn’t romantic either like ‘Ghost’. Basically, it was a really metaphysical ghost tale and I really liked this approach. Unfortunately, I think the whole thing really suffered from Rooney Mara’s departure though. I mean, I did make sense regarding the logic they have chosen, in this case, ghosts wouldn’t experience time like we do, that’s the perks of being already dead I guess, and it must be terribly lonesome. However, from the moment Mara was gone, the whole thing became terribly random and much less effective. To be honest, it felt as if they just added some random stuff to fill up the running time until they could double-back once again on the very same couple. Still, eventually, you might wonder what was this ghost thinking or feeling? Did he actually think or feel anything at all after all? It was really neat that David Lowery refused to provide any easy answers to these questions and it made the whole thing much more fascinating to behold. Eventually, Lowery seems to be also fascinated with impossible doomed love stories since, just as in ‘Ain’t Them Bodies Saint’, it was dealing with a couple who was separated pretty much right from the start. However, in both cases, he didn’t develop both couples at all and, as result, it was rather difficult to invest myself in what they were going through. Anyway, to conclude, even if I wasn’t completely sold, it was another really intriguing directing effort from David Lowery and I think it is definitely worth a look.

7/10