A GHOST STORY

Title : A Ghost Story

Language : English

Release Date : January 22, 2017 (Sundance)

July 7, 2017 (United States)

Directed By : David Lowery

Distributed By : A24

A Ghost Story is a 2017 American supernatural drama film written and directed by David Lowery. It stars Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara, with supporting performances from Will Oldham, Sonia Acevedo, Rob Zabrecky and Liz Franke, and follows the ghost of a recently deceased man who remains in the house he shared with his wife.

The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2017 and was released on July 7, 2017, by A24.

Plot

C (Casey Affleck) is a struggling musician living with his wife M (Rooney Mara) in a small suburban house in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. One night, they hear a heavy bang on their piano, but are unable to find the cause for the noise. Some time later, C is killed in a car accident outside his home. At the morgue, he awakens as a ghost covered in a white sheet with two black holes for eyes. As he wanders aimlessly through the hospital, while no one else is able to see him, he comes to the end of a hallway and sees a doorway of bright flashing light open in front of him. After staring at it, the doorway eventually closes and he walks away.

C's ghost leaves the hospital and returns to his house, watching his wife grieve over her loss. He continues watching over her for days and weeks on end that appear like seconds to him. Eventually, he meets another ghost inside the house beside his. Wordlessly, she tells him that she is waiting for someone, but cannot remember who. One night, C's Ghost sees M returning home with a new boyfriend. Angered, he makes all the lights in the house flicker and throws several books off a bookshelf, opening one to a passage that seems to upset M. Some time later, M listens to a song that C had written for her when he was alive. Finally, M decides to move from the house, but not before leaving a note on a small piece of paper tucked inside a crack in the corner of a wall and painting the crack closed, leaving C's ghost behind.

C's ghost immediately goes to the corner and begins picking away at the paint, but as it seems he's been picking for only a few minutes, a Hispanic single mother and her young son and daughter immediately move into the house. As he walks through the house, he observes their many months there, watching them eat dinner, take piano lessons, and celebrate Christmas. One night, C's ghost makes his presence known to the children by going inside their closet and opening it up. Though it seems the girl cannot see him, the boy can. Deeply traumatised by his boredom and loneliness one night, he begins throwing plates from their cupboard and flickers the lights, frightening the family. Eventually, they move from the house too.

C's ghost then observes the next occupants of the house throw a party, listening to one of the guests (Will Oldham) go on a nihilist dissertation about humanity's collective efforts to ensure their legacy on Earth, and how no matter how hard our efforts to try and preserve that legacy are, it will be for naught when the world eventually ends and the universe collapses on itself again. The partygoers notice the lights beginning to flicker. After some time, the house has now become abandoned and derelict. As C's ghost continues trying to pick at the corner in the wall, he finally begins to pull the paper out, only to be distracted by a bulldozer that levels both his house and the house belonging to the other ghost. As they stand upon the ruins, the other ghost says that she doesn't think whoever she's waiting for is coming, causing her figure beneath her sheet to vanish, leaving just her sheet on the ground. C's ghost watches on as a skyscraper is built on the foundation where his home used to be, walking around it from its construction to its completion. Walking to the roof, he sees a massive, futuristic cityscape where his neighborhood once stood. He walks to the edge of the building and plunges off the side to the bottom.

Upon waking up, C's ghost finds himself in a prairie where 19th-century settlers are setting up camp. The next morning, C's ghost watches as the young daughter amongst them wakes up, writes on a piece of paper and hides the paper beneath a rock. Suddenly, he hears the sound of whooping Native Americans in the distance, and upon turning back, he finds that the settlers have all been slaughtered. He gazes upon the corpse of the daughter as it decomposes and the land and grass begins enveloping her. He waits for centuries until he's once again inside his old home, just as an alive C and M are moving into it. He watches their entire relationship play out in front of him while they live in the house. One night, C's ghost sits on the piano in the living room, producing the bang that he had heard when he was alive. Eventually, he watches as M moves from the house once again as the other C (now also a ghost) watches her leave. He then returns to the corner of the wall and manages to pull the note she left behind from it. Upon opening it and reading what she wrote, C's figure disappears and leaves his now discarded sheet behind.