Clara's Ghost

This is a film that’s wantonly absurd and even silly, and yet, bubbling underneath it all, Clara’s Ghost never takes its eyes off its protagonist or our empathy for her even when she pushed to the edge of the frame both literally and figuratively. And Niedert Elliott’s performance is haunting, perfectly capturing that ambiguous space between comedy and drama that gives the movie its edge.

It’s often said that going into business with family is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea, but Clara’s Ghost provides an exception to this particular rule.

One of the strangest films I’ve seen this year, Clara’s Ghost is a twisted, slippery little whisper of a thing that refuses to let itself be easily defined.

This extremely homemade film, written and directed by Bridey Elliott and starring her own mostly-famous family, is extremely funny at times and nerve-wracking at others, but also pitch black to the point that many will find it unbearable. I say stick with it; if nothing else, the film is a work of great daring.

A degree of tolerance for these frequent outbursts of unrestrained, puerile humor eventually reveals a tender portrait of a neglected woman seeking solace in her vivid, perhaps deranged, imagination

Clara’s Ghost is determinedly quirky, but its ideas are seldom all that original or funny, too often degenerating into rote scatological humor. Nonetheless, there’s a formative creative sensibility that seems on the verge of defining itself — something that never quite happens before the film ends, its anecdotal story having drifted nowhere in particular.

Throughout Clara’s Ghost you can’t help but think that you’re watching a quaint home video that would appeal to the members of the subject family only — the unnecessary square aspect ratio certainly doesn’t help with the amateurish feel of the whole thing.