Evidently the state of American moviemaking has regressed to the point where all low- to mid-budget movies made at the periphery of the mainstream must be either triumphs or failures, as though all it takes to make an artistically significant film is merely an artistic vision. A Ghost Story, written and directed by David Lowery, is our latest case in point, a movie that has left critics and casual viewers alike searching for a word to express their enjoyment of a movie being marketed as an art film and deciding on “masterpiece” or something in its vicinity. Would that more moviegoers were as unafraid of calling an odd duck an odd duck as David Lowery is of making one.
A Ghost Story reunites Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck—they had previously played star-crossed criminals in Lowery’s 2013 breakout Ain’t Them Bodies Saints—as a Texas couple credited only as “M” and “C.” They live in a ranch by way of Brooklyn brownstone; there’s an old upright piano (which has been there from time immemorial), a record collection, a wall full of books (with a “NIETZSCHE” textbook suggestively centered in one cutaway shot). M and C’s relationship is on the rocks, ostensibly because Mara’s character wants to move someplace more exciting while Affleck’s wants to stay put with the house and its history—though I suspect it doesn’t help their cause, metaphysically speaking, that Lowery lets the early scenes of the movie roll on uncomfortably long.
