Beneath its placid and gorgeously manicured surface, the quasi-supernatural Thai romantic fantasy A Useful Ghost conceals a deep well of weirdness. A reserved yet occasionally ribald rendering of omnisexual love, longing and belonging, the Roxie’s Valentine’s weekend offering (playing Feb. 13–16 and 19) should find plenty of admirers in what used to be called Babylon by the Bay.
For Valentine’s, a Thai Fantasy About a Ghost in a (Vacuum) Machine
The haunted vacuum cleaner in a scene from Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke's 'A Useful Ghost.' (Cineverse)
Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke begins his Cannes prizewinning debut feature with an arresting tableau of Indigenous and historical figures posing for an artist. The completed frieze has only a short life in a public square, however, before it is removed, damaged, discarded and dissipated into dust — albeit not the same particles that make Academic Ladyboy (yes, that is the name of the shyly endearing character played by Wisarut Homhuan) sneeze, and prompt him to buy a vacuum cleaner.
Dust has many meanings in A Useful Ghost, primarily as the physical and psychological residue of memories. On the personal level, dust suggests the lingering presence of deceased lovers. The filmmaker also laments the loss of historical memory, represented by the destroyed artwork (and its forgotten subjects) and the 2010 massacre of protestors by Thai soldiers that he explicitly references much later.
Politics and history are not on Ladyboy’s mind, though, when a hiccup in his new appliance necessitates a visit from a repairman. The preternaturally composed Krong (Wanlop Rungkumjad) explains, possibly as a means of seduction, that there’s a ghost in Ladyboy’s machine, and he begins to recount the drolly haunted fable that comprises the heart of A Useful Ghost.
The film is a compendium of unorthodox choices, starting with a gay romance as the frame for a heterosexual love story. Two more homosexual couples will join the proceedings; the audience discovers one of those relationships in flagrante. Partial spoiler alert: Three of the four couples share the same obstacle, namely, that one partner is dead.
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The movie gets to the central relationship much, much faster than I have, patient reader. March (Witsarut Himmarat), mourning a loss, has contracted a respiratory illness. His late wife, Nat (Davika Hoorne), takes up residence in a vacuum cleaner to help cure him. This is not quite as random as you may think because Nat’s perennially disapproving mother-in-law Suman (Apasiri Nitibhon) owns the vacuum cleaner factory at the center of all the paranormal shenanigans.
Boonbunchachoke’s precise compositions reminded me of absurdist Swedish filmmaker and Roxie favorite Roy Andersson (A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence), so I expected oddball behavior passing as normal. The machine (that is, Nat) waiting patiently in line to get on an elevator at the hospital has the anthropomorphic pathos of a Pixar sequence. Suman’s dead-serious admonishment of March, “Please stop screwing your vacuum,” is a pretty good laugh line. (If you’re wondering if a vacuum cleaner can give consent, the answer is “Yes, please.”)
Other bits are more jarring than funny, like the monks commissioned by Suman to dispel Nat whose vitriol includes the c-word. The electroconvulsive therapy used to erase March’s memories of Nat — and which is subsequently employed for political purposes — isn’t intended to be funny but it certainly puts a chill on the light comedy.
While it’s understandable, though not ideal, that the tone of a writer-director’s first feature wavers from time to time, it’s harder to accept the variability of the performances. The pretty young couple playing Nat and March don’t display much more emotional range than the vacuum cleaner — though it’s certainly possible that’s another joke I missed. (For the record, the machine is exceedingly well cast.)
A Useful Ghost manages to be both earnest and transgressive, thoughtful and snotty. It’s an impeccably designed argument for “the force of love” (as March tells his mother) and against the curse of loneliness, with a political hand grenade tucked inside.
Rather unexpectedly, given its basic premise of a ghost inhabiting a vacuum cleaner, A Useful Ghost is a deeply moralistic film and a comedy of conscience. In Boonbunchachoke’s view, there’s a place for everyone, even ghosts.
‘A Useful Ghost’ plays at the Roxie Theater (3125 16th St., San Francisco) Feb. 13–16 and 19, 2026.
