Casey Affleck is silent and barely seen in his greatest film
Casey Affleck rose to prominence in the late 1990s after appearing in Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting in 1997, a film written by his older brother and their childhood friend Matt Damon. Emerging from Ben Affleck’s shadow, Casey gained recognition for his acting prowess in 2007 when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the Western drama The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
Entering the 2010s, Affleck cut his teeth as a director with his successful mockumentary I’m Still Here before a run of acclaimed acting appearances, including Tower Heist, Interstellar and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. The actor’s career hit a peak in 2016 with probably his greatest performance to date in the drama Manchester by the Sea. This spellbinding role earned Affleck a Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Actor, among various other accolades.
So, what do I mean by “Casey Affleck is silent and barely seen in his greatest film”? While Affleck’s greatest acting performance to date was likely his lead role in Manchester by the Sea, in my opinion, the best film he’s graced with his presence was David Lowery’s A Ghost Story, which premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
When I saw the trailer for this peculiar film, I was hesitantly intrigued. It seemed quite a bold mood to take one of the finest actors of our times and throw a bedsheet over him for most of a feature-length film. Indeed, Affleck, Rooney Mara’s co-star, is dressed as a child might imagine a ghost, with a white sheet over his body and circular eyeholes cut for ease of vision.
This may seem a comical sight, but after watching this powerhouse of avant-garde filmmaking, I will never see Halloween costumes made from old bedsheets in the same way. Affleck’s motionless figure lurks, motionless in the corner of intense desolate shots of his wife while she comes to terms with the loss of her beloved husband.
Allow me to take you back to the beginning of the story. An unnamed musician (Affleck) is happily married to his wife (Mara), who, one night, tells him that she moved a lot as a child and has a habit of leaving a note hidden in the structure of every house she left behind. The husband dies the following morning in a car accident, and as his dead body lies in the hospital, his shroud begins to move as he rises from the bed like a ghost.
The film follows Affleck as a ghost who watches helplessly as his wife grieves and eventually moves on with her life. Despite the obscurity of the sheet, Affleck’s emotion is palpable. We watch as his character comes to terms with the afterlife and the aching, frustrated pain of loss.
The secret to the film’s power is in its minimalism. Horror films are known for sharp, jumpy moments as the supernatural being, or threatening killer is suddenly revealed in a recently closed mirror cabinet. Such moments are invariably seasoned with tense sound effects akin to the high-pitched violin shrieks in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. In that respect, A Ghost Story is a breath of minty fresh air. The scenes are slow, moody and intense, with a still frame and pin-dropping silence.
It’s certainly not a film to watch with young children. Not only is it haunting nightmare-fodder, but one can only imagine an outburst like “Mum, I’m bored!” would crush the all-important tension and mounting emotion like crisps under bison.
A Ghost Story deserves your attention and patience; with this, I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed. As the story unfolds, Lowery’s depiction of the afterlife is not one of cheerful, happy endings; I must warn you that this is a profoundly heartbreaking and poignant story. Perhaps falling short of the greatest film of the 2010s, for me, it stood out as the most powerful and certainly one for the movie buff’s bucket list.
