A Ghost Made of Casey Affleck and a Blanket Poetically Haunts Rooney Mara in ‘A Ghost Story’ Trailer

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Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Pete’s Dragon director David Lowery is back with A Ghost Story, which re-teams Saints stars Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, except that the latter spends a large portion of the film hiding under a bedsheet as a ghost. The trailer was just released — and exhibits a surprising atmospheric ability to eke mystery and beauty from the crude simplicity of the dude-in-sheet thing.

Apparently, the just-released trailer reveals perhaps a bit more of the plot than it should — so take that with a grain of ectoplasm (or, in this case, sheet fabric) going into it, should you choose to go into it at all. (“Q word of warning: the film’s twists — heck, part of its message — is condensed into these two minutes of footage,” writes Chris Plante for the Verge.) The film, which incidentally features Rooney Mara eating a pie for five minutes straight, follows an unnamed couple who’ve just moved into a Texas ranch house — and who’re torn asunder when a car crash kills Casey Affleck’s character — but reunited, in a sense, once he reappears under a blanket.

When the film screened at Sundance last year, it was very well received, with Brian Tallerico writing for rogerebert.com that it’s “a stunning experiment in filmmaking—often silent for long stretches at a time; shot in 1.33:1 but with rounded edges to make it look like a Polaroid; playing with time and perspective; alternately mournful and playful; embracing a supernatural element but from an angle we don’t often see.”

From the trailer and reviews, it looks and sounds like a less ostentatiously meditative Tree of Life.

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The film will be out, via A24, on July 7. Here’s the poster: