Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, Kristin Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Neil Casey
Director: Paul Feig
Upon being asked the proverbial question Erin Yelbert suddenly turns contemplative. She takes a second’s pause, for while it may have been for the questioner merely an expression of harmless curiosity, it carries for her a lifetime of meaning. She manages at last, a response, “Yes, I have. I saw a ghost when I was eight”. Having thus impressed upon the others the sheer gravity of this reminiscence, she embarks on a monologue — a description of the events that led to, and then those that followed from the apparition. It is a peculiar sequence, an oddity in a film that insists upon consistent diffusion of sentiment, upon irony, upon effect, upon writing that aims to land, but never stay.
This is a sort of a trial of principles. For if there is anything she seeks, it is faith. Fortunately for her, the others do believe her, and this leads to the formation of the Ghostbusters — a collective of administrators, historians, scientists and engineers. Their work is marked by a sincerity of purpose, but is met, not unexpectedly, with derision. Initial reports declare them cuckoo; cynicism and abuse emerge as instruments of casual misogyny. However, after they capture a ghost in full public view, the popular consensus around them begins to change.
The possibilities of a successful freelance business seem to emerge, but they are summoned by the Federal government, which advises them to choose ignorance and not “interfere with the work of the authorities”. Soon, however, the Ghostbusters stumble upon an even larger conspiracy: a suicidal supervillain has managed to make preparations for a grand invasion of New York City by an army of the dead. They decide to assemble an insurrection, for they not only consider it their heroic responsibility, but also an opportunity for legitimacy and validation.
In this, the Ghostbusters franchise is entirely unique — for it imagines the paranormal or the supernatural as scientific, fully open to empirical scrutiny and thereby, explainable through a set of rational principles and theories. If a viewer were to accept this central premise, its lead protagonists are some sort of pioneers, individuals in the possession of knowledge the world does not yet accept as conventional wisdom. One character derides another by calling her “Doctor Frankenstein”.
If the film is remarkably interesting for its first hour, it is because it depicts the various aspects of any revolutionary scientific pursuit: its passionate enterprise, the desire for community and acceptance, its inherent sanctimony, the resultant scepticism and humiliation — with great honesty. The entire set of events that depict the installation of the popular iconography: costumes, equipment, choice of transport and accidental discovery of logo – are very nifty and pleasurable. This is soon allowed to devolve into clichés and Hollywood-enforced tedium.
It is a habit of a large majority of mainstream American cinema to enlist the final third of its duration to simulate an emotional payoff — a tendency common to family dramas (which feature reunions, homecoming), children films (the child will come of age, acquire an adult quality), romantic comedies and as is the present case, the action film (the odds increase, the setting of the action expands, there is more damage).
These are engineered to be opportunities for a collective emotional release for the audience, but are instead, patently, false — for they prescribe a complete upheaval, a total epiphany, the absolute destruction of the existing order as solutions. This absolutism is highly reductive — as in the case of Rowan, a complex, enigmatic character whose rejection by the world mirrors that of our lead characters — but who the film makes, for the sake of its convenience, into a disgruntled nerd-villain.
The writer is programmer, Lightcube Film Society
