Very roughly a Ghost for grownups. Not all grownups, on reflection, but those who possess some of the qualities idealistically associated with grownups, qualities like wisdom and worldliness and temperance and common sense. So, in other words, not a sufficient number of actual grownups to ensure it as a box-office smash. It certainly has its share of crowd-pleasing cuteness (a horseplay rendition of "Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore") and of brain-softening glamour (the dead lover was an accomplished cellist, and his most likely successor is an accomplished amateur magician when he isn't improving the world -- i.e., aiming for another soft spot -- by caring for the handicapped). But everything's relative, as we know. And the husband here is dead before the action gets started, so there's no mud-pie erotic play. And in place of the custom-designed and -decorated Manhattan loft of "Ghost", the grieving heroine is stuck in a rat-infested flat with plumbing problems, carpentry problems, lots of problems. When the lover all of a sudden returns from the grave, with full visibleness and tangibleness, a couple of sensible and practical questions about death and dying (What's it like? Which is worse?) leave plenty of other questions unasked and unanswered. But the resulting situation makes a good metaphor for grief and withdrawal: a literal retreat from the world of the living and retrenchment in the world of the dead. And having to put up with your dead lover's dead cronies coming over to your house to watch videos all night makes a good, and a funny, metaphor for the unhealthiness of the situation. Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman; written and directed by Anthony Minghella. (1991) — Duncan Shepherd
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