Once we got used to the very slow pace, Jack and I enjoyed this trippy tone poem, whose title isn't a metaphor, wherein a man returns to his home after his death as a ghost in a big white sheet with oval eye holes and watches his widow cope before some other stuff happens.
Rooney Mara (last blogged for Song to Song) and Casey Affleck (won a well-deserved Oscar for Manchester by the Sea) don't have many lines--like I said, it's trippy--but much is conveyed to those with patience. And, in the majority of scenes, it's actually Affleck in the sheet.
Director/writer/editor David Lowery (last blogged for those duties on Ain't Them Bodies Saints) made a lot of money on Pete's Dragon (2016), which we didn't see, and spent some of it on this movie, keeping it secret until release. It was shot in Irving, Texas, but isn't location-specific. It's not unimportant that Lowery does his own editing, as evidenced by the aforementioned very slow pace.
Composer Daniel Hart's (also scored Ain't Them Bodies Saints) eerie and pretty soundtrack can be streamed on youtube from this link. It includes the song I Get Overwhelmed by Dark Rooms.
We got a chuckle at the production company name: Scared Sheetless. And there is a now-infamous "pie scene," featuring a gluten-free, sugar-free, chocolate cream pie, and shot in one long take. I'm hesitant to describe it, but this Slate article about it is pretty funny. Read it after you've seen the movie, or before if you want. Interesting trivia missed by imdb: Mara had literally never eaten pie before. She says she was a picky eater with no sweet tooth. And doesn't care to eat any more now.
Critics are drooling, averaging 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, while its audiences come in at 69, the numbers perhaps brought down by less patient folks. If you can sit still for an hour and a half, we think you may like it.
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