Director: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke
Writer: JRatchapoom Boonbunchachoke
Stars: Davika Hoorne, Witsarut Himmarat, Apasiri Nitibhon
Synopsis: A spirit possesses a vacuum cleaner, causing many consequences.
If you’ve seen Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, you probably remember the line, “When you see this woman act, you’ll feel like you got your c*ck sucked by a vacuum cleaner!” If you ever wondered what that felt like, you should watch Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s directorial debut ,A Useful Ghost, in which the spirit of a dead wife possesses a vacuum cleaner and, yes, does what the aforementioned quote says. If you think I’m spoiling something from this certifiably insane movie, don’t worry – I’ve barely scratched the surface. This is one of those audacious productions where you’re either fully on board with it or will check out as soon as you see the spirit of a dead person being reincarnated inside a household appliance.
For me, I had a relatively mixed experience watching Boonbunchachoke’s Fierté Montréal-award winning ghost comedy, which starts out as a purely pleasurable, almost mad genre film with such mordantly-timed humor it’s almost impossible to resist falling in love with what the Thai filmmaker proposes. The first half of the movie is a total laugh riot, where this writer almost fell off his chair multiple times because he was laughing so hard. It is bizarre, sure, but the profound humanity at the heart of this otherworldly story felt incredibly tangible, and the core relationship the film tracks, between March (Witsarut Himmarat) and ghost Nat (Davika Hoorne) is so textured that it’s not hard to fall in love between the two characters.
There’s a study of grief at the middle of Boonbunchachoke’s screenplay that’s profoundly affecting, especially as one contrasts March’s relationship with his vacuum as a sort of memento with “sentimental value” that carries the soul of her deceased wife. Many who cope with the loss of a loved one will sometimes keep frivolous objects, with no monetary value, for themselves because it carries a personal history to them and reminds them of the people that were a part of their lives before they moved on to another plane of existence. March does things with the vacuum that may put him in jail, but who can blame him when the spirit of his wife is intrinsically attached to the object and just won’t disappear?
These questions that lie within A Useful Ghost are intriguing and sets the stage for a movie that explores what it means to be a human in a world that feels less grounded in reality by the day. Plus the comedy is very funny – calm, peaceful monks swearing at the sight of the ghost? C’mon, this is typical fantasy slapstick, and it works to brilliant effect in Boonbunchachoke’s genre hybrid.
The relationship between March and Nat is also well-developed, with the pair giving performances of great sensitivity, especially in the film’s latter half, where they ruminate on their own existence – and mortality – as they face a planet they don’t understand. The back half of the movie is also where A Useful Ghost began to lose me, turning the impeccably-timed (and often caustic) comedy into a rightfully angry political satire that, unfortunately, undoes a lot of the strong character work of the first half in favor of a wild ending that will certainly have lots of people talking, but whose emotional impact is stunted by blunt provocation.
Boonbunchachoke has a lot (perhaps too much) on his mind, and I doubt many will disagree with what he says. However, the approach chosen feels like a massive departure from what its former half had acclimated the audience to, especially as the story moves into more comedic territory. Ditching this halfway through and extending the runtime to near interminable lengths doesn’t seem like the right move when A Useful Ghost has already built so much momentum before losing most of it altogether. There are scenes in the second part of the film that will undoubtedly get people talking (one, in particular, is so wild it makes everything in Jerry Zucker’s Ghost look like small potatoes in comparison), but is it only because of how provocative they are?
There is some wild stuff in this that is too good to be kept secret, but after the effect of being bemused by what’s on screen wears off, you’re left with the odd sense that this project feels incomplete and that the screwball ghost comedy was a far more intriguing aspect than the political satire. It is still an admirable effort and sets Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke as a filmmaker to watch as he makes his next move. However, the overall result of a film with such an insane premise should be far better (and more memorable) than what it sadly ends up being. Though if you wanted to see someone getting his private parts sucked by a vacuum cleaner, boy, do I have the movie for you…
