We Have A Ghost review: David Harbour discovers stranger things in death than in life
A fractured family moves into a haunted house in Christopher Landon's plodding comedic mystery
Film Reviews David Harbour
Writer-director Christopher Landon’s Freaky and Happy Death Day 2U cleverly function as Trojan Horses: breezy horror-comedies used to subtly smuggle in palpable amounts of poignancy dealing with familial anxieties. We Have A Ghost is no different in that regard; however, it contains an even slighter degree of heartrending melancholy to match its zany hijinks. Or maybe it just feels that way once we get to the emotional dénouement a full two hours into this tale about an uprooted family finding a lost soul caught in limbo. Taking its cue in tone partially from Beetlejuice, it experiences a shaky transition from short story (Geoff Manaugh’s “Ernest”) to full-scale feature. What should be a tight 90 minutes turns into a much longer commitment that, while spirited, is too sluggish for its own good.
Kevin Presley (Jahi Winston) has just moved to a new home in the Chicago suburbs and isn’t very happy about it. Not only is the Victorian-era house in noticeable disrepair, overgrown with vines and cobwebs, he feels he’s a victim of circumstance due to his father Frank’s (Anthony Mackie) failed get-rich-quick schemes. This has also left Kevin’s older brother Fulton (Niles Fitch) and mom Melanie (Erica Ash) approaching the family’s fresh start with a great deal of apprehension and worry. Yet their fears are ironically about to be laid to rest once Kevin meets someone special—and no, it’s not next-door-neighbor Joy (Isabella Russo), a tech-savvy, Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girl-adjacent love interest. She’s not the one who shakes up his world.
It’s Ernest (David Harbour), a balding, bowling-shirt-sporting, middle-aged ghost haunting the Presleys’ attic. After the specter’s attempt to spook Kevin quickly bombs, Ernest befriends the young teen. Kevin suspects that his new bestie is stuck between realms and needs help with some unfinished business. What that entails remains a mystery, as Ernest has amnesia and can’t properly communicate. Meanwhile, Frank and Fulton have caught wind of the pair’s blossoming friendship and seek to exploit Ernest online, posting videos, slinging merchandise, and scheduling ill-advised TV appearances. As a frightening social media following amasses, Ernest’s presence also alerts authorities like Dr. Leslie Monroe (Tig Notaro) and CIA Deputy Director Schipley (Steve Coulter), whose nefarious plans are to study Ernest, thus blocking his quest to find peace and cross over.
To say this feature is overstuffed is an understatement. It’s teeming with good ideas, but too many of these concepts aren’t used in an innovative way that economizes its time. Instead of having scenes pull double or triple duty, simultaneously layering in the characters’ internal and external stakes within the hilarity, action, and spectacle, scenes establish one thing at a time, parceling out information and emotion when they should be intertwined. Giving Kevin a smart, sassy pal like Joy in whom he can confide is a nice touch, but is ultimately non-essential as Ernest also pulls him out of his shell in almost the same ways. Cutting other superfluous components, specifically everything dealing with the vendetta-driven Dr. Monroe and the CIA, in favor of our core characters’ motivations could’ve helped tighten the pace and energetic rhythms.
That said, for the most part, the short story’s scenarios have been updated to the characters’ betterment—softening Frank from a one-dimensional, self-centered guy to a flawed father working through his troubles, and swapping the brothers’ personalities and arcs. The narrative benefits from structural changes as well, shifting to a cleaner, clearer format and focusing on a younger protagonist, which makes the Amblin-adventure-inspired antics ring louder. Big action sequences justify their inclusion, from the crackling police pursuit once the kids hit the road with Ernest to Ernest’s body-contorting, face-melting introduction to medium Judy Romano (played by a vivaciously unhinged Jennifer Coolidge).
A warm, light-hearted buoyancy is wisely fused not solely with the script’s comedic flexes, but also with Marc Spicer’s saturated cinematography and Jennifer Spence’s production design choices, especially the autumnal-colored stained-glass window that relishes its multitude of movie moments. While Mackie and Winston’s performances shade their father-son relationship dynamic in beautiful coloring, it’s Harbour’s understated, wordless work that resounds, possibly having been dealt the tougher task to act with nary any dialogue and without going too broad.
Despite the clear-eyed intentions fueling much of the film’s drive, extraneous elements padding the source material compound in the interminably long second act, which is then followed by an expository, clumsily assembled finale. Closure is inevitably attained, of course, but at a cheapened cost that dramatically lessens the impact of its main characters’ journeys. And that’s truly dispiriting.
We Have A Ghost premieres February 24 on Netflix
23 Comments
Good on Mackie and Harbor for making hay while the sun shines but everything about this film sounds horrible.
David Harbour once pet my dog while we were on a walk this summer. At first I thought I was mistaken because I was watching Stranger Things at the time, but Google later confirmed that he lives down my street.
I saw the Harbour-Allen house on a recent Architectural Digest. Damn they’ve got good taste.
Neat!
He and Lily Allen, apparently, which was a fun celebrity couple I had no idea existed until a few weeks ago.
“which was a fun celebrity couple I had no idea existed until a few weeks ago.”Same, and I like both of them a lot. I never would have guessed at that pairing but they seem delightful together.
I mean I haven’t seen it but this film *sounds* absolutely delightful to me. It sounds like (from this review anyway) it had some missteps in execution, but “teens try to help a misunderstood ghost” seems like a winning concept.
It wasn’t horrible. Winston and Harbour made this better than it had any right to be. It was just at least 30 minutes too long. And it really needed that trim because it felt like, and I mean this in the kindest possible way, a high-end, early 2000’s Disney Channel Original Movie.
I just googled Faith Ford. Did she make a deal with the devil or something?
I thought the name sounded familiar, wondered if it was the actress from Murphy Brown, and yep. She looks ridiculously good for 58.
Yeah, sounds like one of those things where if you just take out one aspect of it (personally, the “let’s make it big on social media” shit sounds like it could go right out), it probably fits much better.
Except for the fact that that’s exactly what would happen these days.
It’s unfortunate that the producers decided that they needed bad guys in this movie; they really are a completely unnecessary distraction from the story.
Harbour really seems to be in a lot of supernatural- or superpower-related stuff. Stranger Things, Black Widow, Violent Night, Hellboy, We Have a Ghost, Suicide Squad, Mad About You…
… Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster Frankenstein…
Interesting cast, but this premise sounds dreadful.
I really wanted to like this, but I agree with everything this review said. The whole film was tonally jarring. 90’s style slapstick comedy and comedic overacting for two acts, then a genuinely tense thriller of a third act. I could have done without the CIA and Dr. Tig stuff. That just felt lifted directly from Splash. This could have been a super fun movie, and for some of it, it was. I wouldn’t even say it’s a bad movie, just a series of missed opportunities.
i’ve had a david harbour overdose for several years now. enough is enough.
It takes a lot to get me to sit through a Netflix movie, so I’ll definitely be skipping this despite enjoying Landon’s Happy Death Day series.
One would think there would be considerably more societal upheaval over the proof that ghosts exist.
Is this the sequel to We bought a Zoo, the movie where they buy a zoo? Is this about a haunted zoo? What’s next for the we cinematic universe?
I got a Ghost Dad notification for this?
Just watched it last night, and this review is spot-on. There’s only one glaring omission here: any commentary about how just godawful Tig Notaro’s acting was. My partner and I were both fans of her standup before watching this movie, but her performance here actually actively made us enjoy her less in hindsight. Maybe it’s because her character was just poorly written (she was), but even great writing probably wouldn’t have salvaged things when it seems like the best performance that could be evoked from her consisted of making one or two faces in response to everything and having the emotional range of a dead fish.
Pretty decent family film. I’d give it a B-minus. I thought the film might be more a commentary on social media fame/infamy and finding friendship, then it pivots into the darker mystery behind Ernest’s death and the CIA angle.