“MALLORY’S GHOST”

Some of the best art comes from people finding the most creative ways to express the lessons they’ve learned. “Mallory’s Ghost,” Arabella Oz’s feature debut as a writer/director, feels like that. The film’s creative plot surrounds a message of self-acceptance that feels deeply personal, even in some of the smaller details. No matter how much of it is pulled directly from Oz’s life, the film has a distinct voice all its own, proving Oz’s talent behind the camera as well as in front of it.

Oz is the titular Mallory, who loves her boyfriend Sam (Nick Canellakis) but is plagued by feelings of insecurity. Sam, a playwright whose first play was something of a sensation, has a bad case of writer’s block and decides to return to the site where his first play was written: The country house of his old professor, Lorna (Delphi Harrington). He brings the reluctant Mallory along with him, so that she can get away from her job and maybe have her own creative moment in the quiet, romantic setting. What he didn’t tell her was that his actress ex, Louise (Anjelica Bosboom), also stayed at this house with him when they wrote his first play together. As if that wasn’t bad enough, their host keeps referring to her as Louise, causing Mallory’s already fragile ego to break down. Lonely and insecure in the shadow of the woman she’s heard so many great things about, Mallory starts seeing Louise around the grounds. Literally haunted by the ghost of her boyfriend’s ex, will Mallory survive the weekend, or will she come out the other side stronger?

It’s clear that something witchy is going on almost as soon as Mallory and Sam arrive at their destination. The lights in the mansion-like house don’t seem to work, and Oz pokes great fun at horror movies by having Mallory avoid the creepiness as much as possible until Lorna arrives. She has apparently retired from teaching and writing to pursue more mysterious, transcendental pursuits, which she attempts to demonstrate on Mallory and Sam to seemingly no avail. But after that is when Mallory starts seeing Louise’s ghost. Sam, deeply focused on his own issues, isn’t fully present for Mallory, which only increases her insecurity. Oz portrays this by shrinking into herself, making herself smaller and quieter as the film goes on.

Near the film’s halfway point, though, the narrative focus shifts, and we start following Louise alongside Mallory, learning about her and her relationship with Sam. Here’s where Oz takes things to the next level, adding a layer of surreality on top of the story that allows her to experiment with some fun visual and written storytelling devices. It’s also where the film becomes something else entirely, becoming much more interesting than the relationship drama it initially presents itself as. Turning Mallory’s focus inward causes the story to take on additional dimensions, delving into Mallory’s psyche and directly connecting her feelings about herself to her feelings about Louise. This isn’t necessarily novel territory, but the way Oz tells the story certainly makes it feel fresh and exciting. The tone stays muted as the film’s color palette, but that makes the moments of snark where Mallory asserts herself feel even more pointed, to the film’s great benefit.

Also to the film’s benefit is its cast. Oz’s low-key personality plays perfectly opposite Canellakis’s more outgoing, nebbishy persona, enough so that Mallory and Sam feel believable as a couple even though they’re mismatched. Canellakis plays straight from the Woody Allen playbook, but has enough nerdy charm to make Sam endearing in moments; you not only buy that women as different as Mallory and Louise would fall for him, but you can see the very different reasons why they each would. Bosboom is a fascinating counterpart to Oz – assertive instead of passive, deeply curious instead of deeply afraid. It makes perfect sense that Sam would do his best writing with her around, since Louise is one of those people who is so open to the world around her that it inspires others. She’s a manic pixie dream girl on the page, but in Bosboom’s performance, she’s a fully well-rounded character, curious about the world and eager to put her stamp on it. Most importantly, Louise is more than a mere foil for Mallory: She’s a projection of everything Mallory wishes she was, but Bosboom brilliantly shows how she hides the parts of herself that are most like Mallory, giving the characters an even deeper connection.

All credit to Oz for her wonderful screenplay, which densely packs all of these ideas into a slim 87-minute runtime while somehow giving them all room to breathe. The idea that we hate most in others what we long for in ourselves isn’t exactly new, but Oz arrives at that message in a bold, exciting way by filtering it through her own formidable creativity. “Mallory’s Ghost” could have easily been a mess, but thanks to Oz’s unwavering vision and talent, it’s a triumph of female-centered storytelling.