The Hollywood adult drama is dead. Any talk of resurrecting it is futile. Nihilism and leftism killed it. It’s gone. If you miss it, get Turner Classic Movies.
A genre still salvageable, though in need of CPR stat, is the smart Hollywood comedy. These days, it seems were stuck with only an increasingly desperate Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell, the Judd Apatow gross-out collection, and overheated romantic comedies based on lame concepts like “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,” or lamer still, catchphrases: “He’s Just Not That Into You” and “What Happens in Vegas.”
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And while the Hollywood comedy may not be dead, every time I think it deserves to be killed there’s a spark of life, and most recently that spark came from “Ghost Town,” a delightful, heartfelt little sleeper from last year starring The Mighty Ricky Gervais and two actors I normally don’t care for: Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni (both have a television-level presence and project less warmth than ice).
Gervais is hilarious and perfectly cast as an anti-social dentist who wants only to be left the hell alone. After a near-death experience he finds himself haunted by a crowd of spirits who can’t move on until some bit of business of theirs is resolved. Since they can’t affect change in the real world, they need Gervais to do it on their behalf. Naturally, their constant presence combined their needing something from him is something he finds intolerable.
The concept may sound thin and like it can’t go anywhere, but because the focus stays on the character development of the Gervais character and not the ghost gimmick, the idea never wears out its welcome. Neither “spiritual” (in that annoying Hollywood way) nor religious, “Ghost Town” is just a clever, emotionally engaging look at a lonely curmudgeon forced to re-engage with the world. The after-life aspect is handled impressively with a matter-of-fact approach – a vehicle with which to explore a character and nudge him along. [Here’s my full review from last year]
Best of all, the climax is beautiful, memorable and very well crafted.
Directed and co-written by David Koepp, the biggest screenwriter working today, this sweet, romantic gem all but disappeared thanks to an almost non-existent marketing campaign. For those of you who missed it and are tired of what passes for a romantic comedy these days, you need to check it out. It’s available on DVD, and probably has been for a while, but I just noticed it today.
Except for the marketing muscle, Hollywood got this one right.
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