Pretty Good

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

At the end of the film, the ghost finally does retrieve his wife's note, and upon reading it, he is free of the time loop and immediately disappears. However, what's written down is never revealed to the audience. "We thought about whether or not we should show it, but it doesn't matter as much as just knowing that he got it," says Lowery. "Nothing written there would mean anything to the audience at that point, and it would just complicate that moment - you'd see something, process it, and then wonder what it means." - Now that is the official ending. Geeez, what a let down. I guess I thought ghosts (as depicted often in literature and now days in documentaries) haunted places due to tragedy and grief linked to the soul doing the haunting. In this we see a note being placed, a lover dying accidentally and another love leaving for a new life. We all know that often these events in life will pull us (often) into the thoughts of the past. So it goes without saying that the ghost should REALLY have been Mara (the wife).

Was delighted to find this on Netflix after not making it to the cinema to see it. Last night, I watched it and it was quite unlike any other film I've ever seen. It's not a horror, it's not a drama, a thriller or a comedy. It's a fantasy but it's also completely unlike any film I've ever watched. The premise is simple. Casey Affleck (C) and Rooney Mara (M) are a couple and the film starts with scenes of their domestic lives. C is then killed (not a spoiler) and M has to identify his body. So far, so familiar. What follows is film-making of a different kind. Yes, the idea of a dead person revisiting their loved one isn't new (Ghost, for example) and neither is the idea of a film from the point of view of a ghost (The Others) but the way it's done here is completely original and brilliantly effective. It's a brave move to design the ghost as a sheet with eye holes (much like a five year old would draw a ghost) and it shouldn't work but it does. At no point is it comical or absurd; once I'd got my head around it, I accepted it completely. C's ghost returns to the home and then plays silent, invisible witness to M's life as she grieves and moves forward. There is one remarkable scene (lasting a good few minutes) that shows only M eating a pie before being sick. C's ghost doesn't move throughout, watching and observing but unable to connect. It's a scene that drifts towards being too long before becoming more powerful. The rest of the film then plays with time, perspective and every other dimension going. The idea of existentialism rears its head constantly, particularly in one long speech (especially noteworthy in a film low on dialogue) by a house member who questions just how much we have to do in life (and how we nearly all fail) to ensure that we will be remembered by more than the next generation. All the while, C is there, watching and observing. He learns to affect the material items around him but ultimately, he is trapped. C is trapped in death and can't move on, M is trapped in grief but can move on. This dreamlike, hypnotic film will be a Marmite experience. For the many who will watch it and think "what the hell was that dull, dreary nonsense all about?", there will be someone who just falls in love with it. There's no storyline to unravel, no dialogue to quote and requote, no action, drama, car chases or raucous laughs, just a series of scenes and images that I couldn't get enough of. It's like watching a beautiful and completely original dream and it's a dream I'll watch again. 8.5/10

If I could give this movie negative stars I would. I couldn't even get through 30 minutes before I turned it off. A complete snooze fest that borders on the insanity of the human mind. This is a classic case of movies that try too hard to be artsy. Trying to fulfill some deeper and more meaningful existence of blah blah blah we get it, you're an imaginative wizard. Don't waste your time with this nonsense. There is no plot, no dialogue, no characters driving the piece, it's just a straight up bore fest that only critics would love. There's nothing special here.

I watched this film on Netflix up to the morgue scene which wasn't very long I admit. The scene where they are cuddling in bed I thought I'd accidentally pressed the pause button by accident so I pressed play to unpause it but had actually then paused it and it made no difference! Scenes lingered way too long it was like photographs on the screen, which is probably the effect the director wanted. Like the most boring photographs you ever did see, the kind to spend 2 seconds looking at and move on, but you are forced to look at them for minutes at a time, I pity those who paid to see it in cinemas.