Ghost Town
Rated PG-13 for some strong language, sexual humor and drug references.
reviewed by Christopher Lyon
It's a romantic comedy version of "The Sixth Sense" mashed up with that 90s odd couple rom-com called "As Good as It Gets" (which also featured NYC, Greg Kinnear, and a dog), and it stars a toned down version of that guy from the original British version of "The Office." That's the pitch, and the result is a solid hit.
The Story
Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) does not like people, including his dental patients. He is private and mean, which makes his colonoscopy at a local Manhattan hospital uncomfortable for everyone. It gets more awkward when the staff has to tell him he died for 7 minutes during the procedure before they were able to bring him back to life.
But that explains why Bertram can now see and talk to all those dead people walking around New York in whatever they happened to be wearing at the moment of their death. When the ghosts realize Bertram can see them, too, they immediately start badgering him for help in bringing closure to their relationships with the still-living.
Bertram agrees to help one of them, Frank (Greg Kinnear), in a bargain to get the rest of them to give him some space. Frank wants Bertram to find a way to break up his widow's relationship with her financˇ. But when Bertram approaches Gwen (Tˇa Leoni) to do just that, he inadvertently begins to fall in love with her.
The Verdict
What we thought of the movie on its own terms
What works: "Ghost Town" could have been a mediocre, derivative mess in so many ways. It is saved by Ricky Gervais' performance as the caustic, funny, self-serving, heartsick dentist. He brings both his inappropriate biting wit and his unlikely likability from his "Office" character, but he tones them down enough to fit into an autumn-in-New-York romantic comedy.
What surprised me, though, is how effectively moving the film's final act turned out to be. It's not that we haven't seen every character and plot device in the film a dozen times before; they just come together so well in the last half that they feel fresh again. Credit writer/director David Koepp for breathing new life into a collection of old ideas -- and for hiring Gervais.
What doesn't work: If anything, I wish they would have let Gervais go a little more. He is hilarious in the scenes where he's really being intentionally funny. Kinnear and Leoni are fine, though they always seem to play the same exact characters no matter what they're in.
Also, while the big philosophical and spiritual ideas driving a story about death and life succeed at generating some real emotion in the theater, they mostly turn to dust when you really take the time to think about them after you get the haunting closing credits song out of your head. (More below.)
Content: Lots of swearing (including uses of God's and Jesus' names) and some crude jokes and language about a mummy's male member.
Worldview
How the film's take on life compares to a biblical perspective
Lots of stories play with ideas about the afterlife to make a larger point. "Ghost Town" creates a world in which the dead eventually move on to something else. We're never told if that's heaven, reincarnation, or oblivion. Before they can get there, though, the people they've left behind must "let them go."
Christians believe the dead move on to face God's judgment or reward based on whether they've trusted in Jesus' death to pay the penalty for their own sinful choices -- without any stops in ghostville on the way.
The film's ghosts want us to see that we the living must resolve our differences with them in order for us to truly live. When we let go of our hold on them (especially those involving misunderstandings), we can be free to embrace the gift of life.
It's kind of a happy little message for a Hallmark card and a feel-good romantic comedy, but it's an unsatisfying one for the real world. Any story that creates a feel-good afterlife without a just and loving God rings hollow. The injustice and evil in this life are too vivid and harsh to simply let the dead go knowing we will so quickly follow them. Without God to give hope and meaning to the next life, this is all just romantic tragedy. (See Ecclesiastes 4 for Solomon's dark thoughts on this issue of life "under the sun" without God.)
The film's other loud message is captured in a quote from Einstein on a motivational poster in the office of a Hindu dentist: "Only a life lived for others is worth living." And it's that motivation that helps Bertram get his Christmas Scrooge on, transforming from the meanest man in town to the guy who likes to help people.
And it motivates me, too, not to waste my life serving self. Again, though, it falls too short because the storytellers want to leave the God of heaven out of the conversation about life after death. I'd love for everyone -- Christian and not -- to love others as they love themselves. But Jesus said that was Commandment #2.
The first and greatest, He said, is to love God with everything we've got. He might have edited Einstein to say, "Only a life lived for God and then others is worth living . . . forever." (Okay, he might not have used that "dot dot dot" thing. That was a little dramatic. Sorry.)
Questions:
- Did you dig "Ghost Town"? Were you surprised how funny and emotional it was? Did you expect it to be a little scary?
- What percentage of romantic comedies would you say are set in New York City in the fall? It's got to be high, right?
- Do you believe real ghosts exist? Why or why not? What does the Bible say about ghosts, if anything?
- If you had to summarize the movie's worldview perspective about life after death -- and how the living should think about the dead -- how would you put it?
- What do you think is the point of a movie that talks about the afterlife without ever mentioning God? What do you think is the point of a life spent in service to other people while ignoring service to God through Jesus?
