Ghost Town

Ghost Town is, sort of, a romantic comedy that takes the lighter side of death and develops a less morbid view on the afterlife. This could have been problematic since cinematic ghosts tend to be a tough sale; death is a serious matter, which if treated incorrectly could have made audience reject the film. However Ghost Town has a great balance of comedy, emotion and a bit of romance that builds an engaging story.

Betram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) is a sad, lonely dentist, though he would argue otherwise. A cynical misanthrope who after dying a short while during a routine colonoscopy wakes up to discover his world has changed a bit, he sees dead people. In a not so creepy air as The Sixth Sense, the story brings up the ever- lingering tale that the dead are always among us seeking to conclude their unfinished business. Pincus now must not only avoid encountering the living but also the dead. The story is shifted from comic blarney into a story with a deeper emotional underlying when a ghost, Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), asks Pincus to help his widow, Gwen (Tea Leoni), from making a horrible choice for her future. The walking dead continue throughout the film and play both on comic relief and emotional understanding. A great thing about this film is that while it is about ghosts the ghosts are second to the characters that are developed based on their deaths. It relies strongly on the memories of those left behind. Which plays back into discovering why Pincus is the way he is and his time spent helping the dead actually brings him back to life.