A Ghost Story

In "A Ghost Story", C loves the home he shares with his wife, M. She isn't so fond of the place and wants to move out and move on. They both get their wish by way of a grave sacrifice. C dies in an accident right outside the house and returns as a ghost draped in a white sheet; to spend the rest of his time (ironically, for a ghost) in the house while M moves on with life. The movie is a sincere study on stillness and change and how they're often counterparts, equally welcome and not, equally scary and relieving. There's a great monologue on the temporariness of life: what do we do when anything we do, doesn't last forever? Do we leave artifacts, imprints of ours for our successors to discover and reminisce over? 

Writer-Director David Lowery wonderfully handles this study, never sermonizing, yet always indulging the viewer sufficiently for these questions to be held on to or to let go and move on, however one may choose to. Both Casey Affleck (C) and Rooney Mara (M) pepper their characters with great tentativeness and vulnerability. The visuals of the movie are quite evocatively done by Andrew Droz Palermo and so is Daniel Hart's music, in combination with external music that makes up for one of the best movie soundtracks of the year. 

To better appreciate the movie: ever wondered whatever happens to our lives' moments, their places, and the people involved, after we move on to others or even beyond. Is life all about a stationary world through which we traipse in all glory or clumsiness? Or is it all a revolving universe around a stationary personal self? It's often said that change is inevitable but what amongst it can we hold on to? When do we let go? 

"A Ghost Story" is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.