The dead need love, too

Ghost Town
Review by Nathan Weinbender

“Ghost Town” doesn’t play a note that we haven’t heard before, but it works nonetheless. It is predictable, yes, but it finds charm and warmth in its predictability, and its performances are so good that I imagine they could brighten even the densest script.

It is a Capra-esque comedy starring British comedian Ricky Gervais as Bertram Pincus D.D.S., the very definition of misanthrope. He is not a people person, which is why he loves being a dentist: If someone is annoying him, he can just shove cotton into their mouths. Awkward and humorless, he considers people to be impediments that he has to inconveniently maneuver around.

After a routine colonoscopy goes unexpectedly wrong, Pincus dies for a few minutes on the operating table. When he’s revived, he can communicate with ghosts; they appear in inconspicuous places and ask him for favors. Whereas most people would be amazed at the sudden procurement of a sixth sense, Pincus is annoyed—Gervais takes situations that would normally require reactions of horror or shock and plays them with a perpetual roll of the eyes.

The head ghost is Frank (Greg Kinnear), who was an adulterer and philanderer in life. His widow is named Gwen, played by the vivacious Téa Leoni, an Egyptologist who is about to marry a man who gives Frank bad vibes. After all, he’s a humanitarian lawyer, a connoisseur of the fine arts, an honest-to-God gentleman—there’s gotta be something wrong with him.

Pincus doesn’t want to cooperate with the dead, who are constantly bothering them with their problems, but Frank makes him a deal: If Pincus can get Gwen to drop her engagement, those pesky ghosts will go away. So Pincus takes the offer, strikes up a relationship with Gwen and, not unpredictably, his pompous exterior begins to crack.

We seem to get the curmudgeon-turned-sweetheart premise about once a month (last month it was “Henry Poole Is Here,”) but “Ghost Town” is the first one in a long time to be done right. The director is David Koepp, who has written a dozen or so hit screenplays—“Jurassic Park,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Spider-Man.” He no doubt knows that the script follows a well-trodden path, and he trusts his actors, who are all very good, to steer the ship.

Ricky Gervais is not well known in the States, which is a shame, because he can play idiots and degenerates better and inflict his performances with more poignancy than any American comedian. Consider his performance as the bumbling, pathetic manager in the British version of “The Office,” which is not only very, very funny, but also unabashedly heartbreaking.

He is perfect as Pincus, and he finds the right balance between boorishness and misery: We don’t resent him so much as feel deeply sorry for him. His transformation in the end seems surprisingly believable, mostly because Gervais is innately likeable even when he’s playing a jerk.

Tea Leoni, too, is wonderful. She’s a criminally underused actress, with steely eyes and a throaty laugh, and we actually buy it when, whaddaya know, she starts to fall for Pincus. Her fiancée is good-looking and successful, but he hasn’t a sense of humor, and she likes Bertram for his barbed wit and his no-nonsense approach to everything. Plus he forgets to cut off the retail tags from his new dress shirts, which is sorta cute.

Movies like this remind me of a comfortable set of pajamas—warm, cozy, familiar, the type of film that you can curl up in front of. I prefer to be challenged when I go to the movies, to be provoked, to see things I’ve never seen before. But every once in a while a film like “Ghost Town” sneaks up and charms the hell out of me.

It’s sweet and pleasant and never smarmy in its intentions. And I hope the American public finally gets wise to Ricky Gervais, who here proves that he could carry a feature on his talents alone.

Grade: B

Directed by David Koepp. Written by Koepp and John Kamps. Starring Ricky Gervais, Téa Leoni, Greg Kinnear and Billy Campbell. PG-13; 102m.