Ghost Town

Ghost Town (Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, Tea Leone) – The premise of this comedy with poignancy has been done many times before.  Yes, ghosts or we have unfilled business.  The Sixth Sense is the dramatic psychological drama in this ilk; Ghost is the overwrought, but occasionally funny, chick flick; Just Like Heaven (Mark Ruffalo and Reese Witherspoon), Always (Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfuss) and City of Angels (Nick Cage and Meg Ryan) are all more run-of-the-mill examples; and Heaven Can Wait may be the best of the sub-genre.

But this one is a touch different and very endearing.  The central character is Dr. Bertram Pincus, DDS, a British ex-patriot living in New York.  Played by the man who invented the character leading TV’s The Office in Britain, Ricky Gervais, Pincus is the anti-social dentist whose only joy comes in the peacefulness of doing dental work.  To say he has no people skills is an understatement.  He goes in for a routine colonoscopy but requests a general anesthetic.  Things go wrong and he “dies” for seven minutes, and emerges able to see ghosts with unfinished business.

Chief among these is Frank Herlihy, played by the surprisingly versatile, almost-superstar Greg Kinnear.  His unfinished business is somewhat unclear but we learn it as the film moves on.  The others include people who want to put things right with the families, their co-workers, and unknown others.  Gervais is offered by Kinnear a way to ensure that the ghosts leave him alone, and he finally takes it.   His job is to make sure that Herlihy’s ex-wife, played by the always engaging Tea Leoni, doesn’t marry her new beau, a human rights lawyer that is either too good to be true or incredibly arrogant.  Of course, Dr. Pincus has been rude to Gwen, the wife, though he is totally oblivious that she exists despite the fact that they live in the same building.

I’ll leave the rest of the story for you to watch.  What I will do is to tell you that Gervais pulls this off in a way few other actors could.  His lack of fame in America and his understated manner keep this movie from going either over-the-top or totally maudlin.  Kinnear is perfect as the cad who loved his wife but played around – only in death does he realizes what a louse he was and the impact he had.  And Leoni is an anthropologist — OK it’s a stretch – who finds common ground with the dentist in analyzing the death of a well-preserved body.

I like this film quite a bit and did not expect to.  It is a quick watch, like a well-written short story.  But it also has a message that keeps it from being your basic Chick Flick or ghost film.

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