By the midpoint of “A Useful Ghost,” when a refrigerator and a vacuum cleaner throw down in an all-out brawl, audiences should be well attuned to its kooky, droll wavelength. Thai cinema might be best known to festival audiences through the austere, magisterial films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. However, Thai films also have a playful, melodramatic aspect that shines brightly in director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s debut feature. “A Useful Ghost” world premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and won the top prize in the Critics Week section. Its deft blend of comedy and pathos, political commentary, and LGBTQ themes will make it attractive programming for festivals throughout the year.
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Thai cinema, and in a larger context, Asian storytelling, isn’t bound by the strictures of Western storytelling, which generally favors neat story structures, tidy causality, and diagrammatic plot elegance. Asian storytelling, since old, has thrived on digressions and tangents, stories within stories, tales sprouting tales, and dreams blurring into reality. “A Useful Ghost” is designed much the same way. It begins with the frame narrative of Krong (Wanlop Rungkumjad) telling Academic Ladyboy (Wisarut Homhuan – yes, that is how he is actually credited) a story about haunted vacuum cleaners. Suman (Apasiri Nitibhon) is the owner of the vacuum cleaner factory. Arguably, the central narrative is Nat (Davika Hoorne), Suman’s daughter-in-law, married to her son March (Wisarut Himmarat), who comes back as a vacuum cleaner after her premature death. The political element is addressed by a politician haunted by the ghosts of innocent civilians slaughtered during the 2010 protests and massacre.
In the U.S., “A Useful Ghost” might be categorized as a ‘horror comedy’, but the label doesn’t apply. Boonbunchachoke’s film is amusing but in a more culturally specific way than the broad sit-com-like gloss applied by Hollywood offerings. The comedy is often rooted in the poker-focused reactions of the cast to increasingly ridiculous situations. The matter-of-fact way the characters treat ghosts and haunted household appliances lends an arch, ironic tone to the film. At one point, Kat’s request to use her frozen eggs to conceive a child with March is rejected by a doctor because she is a ghost, and only living people can provide consent. At another point, March thinks he’s getting intimate with the ghost of his dead wife, but all we and his family see is him suctioning his nipples with a vacuum cleaner as he moans in ecstasy.
Despite its lurid premise, “A Useful Ghost” isn’t without ambition. The several digressions make the feel expansive and expand its scope outwards, giving it an unexpected sweep. Academic Ladyboy has a picture of a mural on his wall. This picture would be throwaway set dressing in any other film. But Boonbunchachoke, in a stunning digression, shows us the artist creating the mural, its installation in a town plaza, and then dismantling, just because, with no bearing on the story. When one of the several ghosts acquires the ability to invade dreams, several minor characters, even extras, are graced with an exploration of their psyche and innermost fantasies and desires. All in all, Boonbunchachoke packs in a miniseries’ worth of detail and incident into the film’s 2-hour 10-minute runtime.
Some viewers might struggle to grasp what’s happening on-screen or even the intended tone. From moment to moment, you have no idea what rabbit hole it will jump down or what genre it will morph into. At one point, it turns into a revenge slasher gorefest. But that is all of a piece with the traditions of Thai cinema and its ability to contain multitudes. Those seeking the LGBTQ themes so prevalent in Thai cinema will be richly rewarded. No less than three gay romances are interwoven into the narrative potpourri of “A Useful Ghost,” with a luminous gay sex scene complementing all the hetero man-on-vacuum cleaner frisky business.
The deliberate in-camera crudity of the special effects deployed to portray the ghosts and haunted household appliances lends an artisanal charm to Boonbunchachoke’s clean staging. The actors all get the memo and deliver playful performances. Rungkumjad and Homhuan, as the smitten gay couple, are especially good at creating a palpable sense of desire and yearning beyond metaphysical boundaries and delineations.
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“A Useful Ghost” should first and foremost be enjoyed as the mainstream accessible entertainment it is meant to be, let not its festival trappings deceive you. It will admittedly be a curiosity for Western audiences, but once in tune with its peculiar and particular modes of storytelling, they will find plenty to enjoy and unpack. [B]
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