REVIEW: We Have a Ghost

In the long, storied history of ghost movies, one must face the question of how to present said specter. Are they like Casper the Friendly Ghost, or are they more in the vein of the spirits from Poltergeist? The best thing that can be said about Netflix's new film, We Have a Ghost, is that the spook at the center of an otherwise confused film is consistently endearing.

Ernest tries the more sinister act on the Presley family when they move in to his haunt of fifty years, but their youngest, Kevin, is non-plussed. "That probably worked on everyone else before," Kevin explains, "but my life is like 1,000 times scarier than this." We have no idea what he means when he says this, of course. Aside from some non-specific comments about the family having needed an undisclosed number of "fresh starts," we know nothing at this point about this mystery trauma plaguing Kevin. Even now I am struggling to remember. It may have had something to do with his dad throwing a temper tantrum in a bowling alley.

Kevin captures his first encounter with Ernest on video, and when it goes viral, Ernest becomes an internet sensation, attracting the attention of the neighbors, the media, and paranormal investigators. As the attention mounts, so does Kevin's determination to find out what happened to Ernest and help him to ease into the afterlife.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the film's premise. We've seen plenty of stories about loveable haunts and misplaced youths at odds with their family. The problem is that We Have a Ghost borrows pieces from all of them but gives no thought how to make them all congeal. Its flavor is some awkward blending of E.T. and Warm Bodies.

David Harbour's ghost has all the frights of Goofy playing Jacob Marley in the Disney adaptation of "A Christmas Carol." Not an invalid choice, and here I think a deliberate one. This might read as perfectly viable within a film that is squarely for a family audience with a child protagonist, but played against a disillusioned high-schooler, the entire charade falls flat.

(For those curious about where such a confused movie does land for a family audience, know that there is a scene where the flesh on Ernest's face melts off in front of a lot of people--comically, but graphically. Take that as you will.)

For a film that lampoons the performativity of society, We Have a Ghost itself errs on the side of cynical. This is most noticeable in the final two thirds of the film when Ernest becomes an internet celebrity and we are treated to a train of Tik Toks showering him with hashtags and hot takes. (The best of these was easily the dude pontificating that "Just because you're not made of matter, doesn't mean you don't matter.") The film makes a bid for relevance by musing about the insincerity of the modern world, and this is where Ernest's story would have really benefited from a character or two who can match his heartfelt openness, not a teen who within five minutes of meeting him compares him to a stripper.

None of the cast particularly thrive in this setup, though Harbour shows an impressive versatility in a role that is almost entirely pantomime. Jahi Di'Allo Winston sells Kevin as a sullen teenager well enough, but I never bought into Anthony Mackie as a father caught between the love of his family and the love of ... social media? Capital? Again, despite his large carving of screentime, the father almost feels like less of a presence than the literal ghost. Perhaps that was meant as a deliberate commentary?

The film shows off a goofier side of Harbour, which many fans will delight in, and there are some fun set pieces with Ernest's ghostly antics that were probably fun to film, but otherwise the film's most notable talking point is probably the combover from purgatory.

--The Professor

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