By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)
Fantasia Film Festival 2021
Coming to Pantaya Streaming Service on Roku
Usually, ghosting someone means cutting off contact with a person with no explanation at all. It’s an idea which gets reversed somewhat in the paranormal rom-com Ghosting Gloria, and it’s hilarious to redefine what the term means. Also, it’s terrific to get a ghost story that’s not about the scares either. The rights to this movie has been acquired by FilmSharks to distribute and remake says a lot. I’m rarely a fan of the latter and my guess is that the studio wants more special effects than what’s featured.
By day, this title character (played by Sofia Tortorella) can’t bear to be around the sexually charged fervor of those she’s near. It seems passion is everywhere in Montevideo, Uruguay, and her issue is not so much about her not getting any. She’s a bookworm. She’s also never dated and thus never felt the pleasures of any kind of relationship until moving into a haunted house with a horny ghost. The scenes with the entity are not explicit, and the entire movie is done in good taste. No one is shown nude or in provocative situations. I don’t think there are that many movies that’s spoofed or tried to surpass When Harry Meets Sally fake orgasm scene until now.
This film delivers a sense of classic Spanish cinematic nostalgia at how finding connections can happen. The period look of this city adds to the style. Eventually, Gloria meets a man that she likes, but the ghost gets jealous. Objects go flying off the shelves and it’s a good enough reason to introduce a slight horror film element.
Any self-respecting soul would want to talk it out. Thankfully, there’s various methods of spirit communication that work–the obligatory Ouija board, writing on a dusty table and a medium helps round out this film with a ghost as the co-star.
If I was the psychologist in this film, I’d say she embraced this mysterious lover because she’s not happy with her life. The fact she doesn’t know him (we learn who he is) and can talk to him without him giving judgement implies she’s deconstructing her life.
The screenplay is smartly written if that’s writer/director Mauro Sarser‘s intent. This film answers a lingering question I’ve always had when concerning spiritual attachments. Are all spirits hyper-aware of a living person’s misery because they too suffered? Given the technology available to paranormal investigators (to which I’ve spent a few years at), communication is a one-way street. Those EVPS are sometimes to difficult to understand, since sleuths get a few words communicated back; we have to fill in the blanks in what the intent of the communication is for.
Ghosting someone should really mean abrupt loss of communication when one side is unwilling to answer another. It doesn’t have to be about loss of contact with others. When you’re Gloria, perhaps it’s just about letting yourself be free rather than to be completely bottled up like she once did. She was a shadow of sorts at the film’s start, and all it took was a genuine ghost to give her that awakening she needed.
5 Stars out of 5
