A Ghost Story

A GHOST STORY (David Lowery, 2017)

In the brief time the couple credited as C (Casey Affleck) and M (Rooney Mara) in A GHOST STORY are together, we see how close they can be and the disagreement they have over whether or not to stay in their current home. He feels attached to the place where they share their lives; to her the house holds no special importance.

The difference of opinions about the space continues when they are parted. C is killed in an automobile accident. When he becomes conscious of being on a new plane of existence, he declines to move on. Instead, donning the white sheet that covered him in the morgue, C is drawn back to the house, where he watches M but is invisible to her. What he recalls about his time before being a ghost is unclear, but something keeps him there. M grieves but in time moves on from him and the house. C remains even as the occupants change, rooted to a location where he feels an unexplained loss and unresolved anger.

C can make things go bump in the night and lash out in the ways other stories have conditioned us to think of ghosts, but writer-director David Lowery has other interests than eliciting jumps from an apparition that goes, “Boo!” For one, A GHOST STORY portrays the experience of grief for the deceased. The metaphysics at play are vague, but C appears to have a choice to advance to a different level or stay on this earthly one. The decision to remain haunts him and others like him. These ghosts are like dogs left at home without any way of knowing when or if their owners will return. They are waiting for that happy moment when they are reunited with someone, except they experience time much differently and have little to no memory of why they feel holes at their cores. The ghost’s grief is not specific but a general emptiness with no obvious way of filling it.

Lowery also studies the grief for a place. Time transforms everywhere, so even if a spot has little turnover in residents or a lot through the years, the space is not what it once was. Just as the physical qualities change, the relationship with the location adapts. Mental associations are as much a part of the structure as the beams. C’s link in life and afterlife to the house are all of the emotional ties and memories that it contains, yet what he struggles to realize is that those don’t vanish even with the absence of the four walls around him. In contrast to the film’s minimal dialogue, Lowery spells this out effectively, although somewhat heavy-handedly, with a monologue delivered by a prognosticator played by Will Oldham.

A GHOST STORY unfolds in the style of European and Asian slow cinema so it can better convey the different experience of time and put our years into perspective regarding the universe’s age. Little tends to happen, but when C flits through time in a less comprehensive version of THE TREE OF LIFE’s birth of the universe section, Lowery powerfully evokes the impermanence of what we tend to assume as eternal.

Rather than generating restlessness, the stillness and relative silence in A GHOST STORY create room for meditation and appreciating the visual detail. C’s ghost sheet is gorgeously wrinkled with impenetrably dark eyeholes, more like a haute couture version of a death shroud than a homemade costume from the Charlie Brown Halloween special. The score by Daniel Hart and key song “I Get Overwhelmed” by his band Dark Rooms express the wistfulness in time’s redefining of things throughout life. A GHOST STORY aches for what no longer is but reminds that truly the most valuable things transcend.

Grade: A-

Manchester by the Sea

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)

The death of his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) prompts Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) to return to his hometown, but he intends to go back to Boston as soon as he can even though all that’s there for him is a handyman job. In MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, named after the town where he can hardly bear to be, Lee has funeral arrangements to tend to and, more importantly for the time being, needs to look after his sixteen-year-old nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges) as his mother Elise (Gretchen Mol) has not been in the picture for years.

To Lee’s surprise his brother made him Patrick’s trustee and guardian. Although he loves his nephew, it’s a responsibility that Lee does not want, at least if it means coming back to live in Manchester-by-the-Sea again. The place is burdened with memories of life before his divorce from Randi (Michelle Williams) and the looks and reactions from those who see him around. Patrick understandably resists the idea of being uprooted. Lee assumes the caretaker role in the meantime while trying to find a solution that will be satisfactory for both of them in the long run.

Heartbroken and despairing, Lee refuses to forgive himself for the tragedy in his life. It becomes clear that he had a valid reason for moving away, but in doing so he also separates himself from the family support system that he needs. His small and dim basement apartment suggests that he has done the closest thing to burying himself. If it wasn’t for Joe pushing him to purchase some furniture, his living arrangement would be as spartan as a cell, which is what Lee acts as if he deserves. Affleck does extraordinary work occupying a character who hates himself on a deep level yet is compelled to honor the obligations he feels he owes and those bestowed upon him. Lee’s pain is genuine, and he accepts it as his cross to bear rather than something for him to perform. By not seeking empathy in his portrayal, Affleck attracts it.

Grief runs through MANCHESTER BY THE SEA like a fault, something abrasive grinding away that is ever present yet unexpected when the energy from it explodes. Writer-director Kenneth Lonergan explores the strain of life after death on the living with great sensitivity for how the sense of loss can emerge and how people deal with it. Grief can strike from encountering something innocuous or without any prompting whatsoever. It takes the form of outbursts and self-inflicted damage. The individualized nature of grief also means that there’s no single answer for easing it. Lee and Patrick’s interactions in the wake of Joe’s death are far from perfect, but there’s beauty in how they fumble their way through a difficult situation together.

Although MANCHESTER BY THE SEA can be profoundly sad, it features a fair share of humor. Lonergan recognizes that grieving isn’t constant wailing but pushing through the days and returning to routines. Laughter is a part of that, and the film finds a lot funny in the little ways people may try to distract from what makes them uncomfortable and the sarcasm that creeps into conversations.

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA opens with Lee, Joe, and a young Patrick out fishing. Lee asks the kid who he’d pick to be with if he could only have his uncle or his dad with him on an island. It’s a warm scene with him teasing the boy when he naturally picks his father. As circumstances play out, neither Lee nor Patrick will really have a choice in the matter. The film closes with Lee and Patrick on that same boat. It’s not what either would want, but they’ll make the best of it that they can.

Grade: A

Ain't Them Bodies Saints

AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS (David Lowery, 2013)

The latest armed robbery by husband and wife Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) and Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara) goes south when it leads to them and their partner getting holed up in a shack shooting it out with the cops in Texas hill country.  In the exchange of gunfire their accomplice Freddy (Kentucker Audley), the son of their criminal mentor Skerritt (Keith Carradine), is killed while Ruth wounds police officer Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster).  The outlaws have no choice but to surrender, and Bob accepts all of the blame to keep his pregnant wife from also going to the penitentiary.  Although they are being forced apart, he promises he’ll be with Ruth and their unborn child soon.

Nearly four years later Ruth and daughter Sylvie (Kennadie Smith and Jacklynn Smith) have something resembling a normal life in a small town.  She leaves her wild ways behind to support her kid.  Skerritt sees to it that they have a home next to his, although his charity may just as well be a means of keeping an eye out for Bob if he ever manages to break out of prison.  Indeed, on his sixth attempt, Bob escapes.  Based on the passionate letters he wrote to Ruth for the duration of his incarceration, their former associates and law enforcement expect him to turn up eventually at her door.

AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS is set in what looks to be the 1970s, and the style is reminiscent of that decade’s new Hollywood even if the scenario belongs to classic westerns taking place in the Old West a hundred years prior.  Through spare storytelling, magic hour cinematography, and naturalistic voiceover writer-director David Lowery’s film displays the influence of Terrence Malick, BADLANDS in particular.  Although Lowery zips through considerable plot, he’s far more interested in mood than narrative details.

AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS swells with regret and romantic longing.  Bob imagines a future with the woman he loves and the little girl he has yet to meet.  The intense singular focus undiminished by the circumstances bestows nobility on the character despite the shortcomings that led him and Ruth to be separated.  Affleck transforms Bob into a sympathetic figure by wearing his heart on his sleeve and seeming naive to the situation’s reality, yet his overwhelming passion is also a weapon for making a reunion with Ruth possible.

Ruth’s feelings for Bob are harder to discern, not because she has reason to love him less but because his presence will complicate the stability she needs to care for Sylvie. Mara maintains the film’s internal tension by being difficult to read as she processes what Bob’s escape means and how she needs to respond.  Ruth has made it through recent years by hiding the truth, so there’s suspense in determining her real motivation in entertaining Patrick’s shy flirtations and sadness in knowing she is probably stuck in a spot unresolved without at least one person suffering grievous injury.  

The characters in AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS receive sanctification of a sort through self-denial. They are permitted to express affection but only from a distance, for direct contact possesses too much mortal or emotional danger.  Lowery’s achingly beautiful film vibrates with the knowledge that sometimes love means depriving oneself from giving in to it.

Grade: B+