In the slow-paced, meditative love story that is A Ghost Story, viewers are shown a ghost’s (Casey Affleck) will to endure through time. Motivated by his desire to negotiate the legacy of his married life, and his need to retrieve the note his wife (Rooney Mara) writes after his death, the ghost is the embodiment of unfinished business.
Dialogue is scarce in the film, but that might as well be a reason for the film’s title. The majority of the film is shown through the ghost’s perspective, through him surveying the lives around, beholding the iteration of the new replacing the old. To say it’s a ghost’s story would not suffice; rather, it’s a story of human experience: of losing and gaining, of the yearning for the loved ones that drives us to stay around longer and try harder.
So much of A Ghost Story is left up for audience interpretation. It invites one to play with the ideas and doesn’t mind an obscure response. The film is a truly innovative and stirring tale of everything human and transient.