Archive · 27 Jul 2026
A Useful Ghost explores love and haunting
A Useful Ghost is a movie about a woman named Nat who dies but her spirit lives on in a vacuum cleaner.
Her husband, March, is happy to have her back, but others see it as strange.
The movie is set in Thailand and talks about love, death, and important issues like pollution and politics.
It won a big award at the Cannes Film Festival and is now on Mubi.
The story is told through beautiful scenes and shows how love can be stronger than death.
Nat's spirit haunts a vacuum cleaner after her death, much to her husband March's delight.
The film explores themes of love, death, and societal issues like air pollution and political repression.
A Useful Ghost won the top award in the Cannes Film Festival's Critics' Week section in 2025.
The movie is known for its arthouse style, featuring stillness, frontal compositions, and deadpan humor.
Nat's presence in the vacuum cleaner leads to a philosophical meditation on love and societal issues.
- Who
- Nat, March, Suman, Krong, Tok
- What
- A ghost haunts a vacuum cleaner, exploring themes of love, death, and societal issues.
- When
- The film is set in the present day, with flashbacks to the past.
- Where
- Thailand
- Why
- To explore the themes of love that outlives death, societal issues, and the coexistence of spirits and the living.
Traditional Beliefs
Modern Rationality
Spirits and the Afterlife
Traditional Beliefs
Believes in the coexistence of spirits and the living, as seen in Nat's haunting of the vacuum cleaner.
Modern Rationality
Approaches the supernatural with skepticism, viewing it as a metaphor for deeper societal issues.
- Director
- Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke
- Release Year
- 2025
- Award
- Top award in Cannes Film Festival's Critics' Week
- Genre
- Arthouse, Drama, Supernatural
- Runtime
- 130 minutes
- Streaming Platform
- Mubi