Written by Varisa Sirisook
Illustrated by Jessica Chan
What does it mean to be useful, and who gets to decide? Writer and director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke explores these questions in his debut feature ‘A Useful Ghost’ that took home the 2025 Grand Prize at Cannes Critics’ Week. The film blends fantasy and comedy to deliver a moving reflection on memory and a supernatural satire on Thai politics.
It is a stunning, stylised experience delivered by its dreamlike soundtrack and cinematography that holds the audience entranced; but what first appears to be a charming, unconventional love story transforms into something darker. Strong performances from the cast carry the dramatic dialogue with flair, but where the film shines brightest is the conviction of its narrative and ideas.
‘A Useful Ghost’ follows Nat (Davika Hoorne), a ghost who possesses a vacuum cleaner to stay with her husband, March (Witsarut Himmarat), among the living. Her disapproving in-laws make numerous failed attempts to sever their connection, from an exorcism to electroconvulsive therapy meant to erase March’s memory of her, the source of her presence. Desperate for her husband’s family to accept their relationship, Nat uses her ability to enter dreams in identifying and subduing a vengeful ghost haunting the factory run by March’s mother, Suman (Apasiri Nitibhon). Now celebrated as a ‘useful ghost,’ her ability catches the government’s attention, who assigns her to investigate the general population’s memories for politically inconvenient figures: the victims of the 2010 Bangkok massacre.
Narrated by a mysterious technician (Wanlop Rungkumjad) and the self-identified ‘Academic Ladyboy’ (Wisarut Homhuan), whose vacuum cleaner he has come to fix, the film is an ambitious whirlwind through various problems in Thailand, from dust pollution to racism against people from the Isan region. While Nat and March are cisgender and heterosexual, the film deftly draws parallels between them and queer couples in the film, as well as weaving the struggles queer people face in real life into the plot.
Throughout the film, Nat and March are denied the rights their marriage granted them during the former’s life. While an early hiccup with visiting hours is played off as a humorous jab at bureaucracy, comedy becomes tragedy when they are denied access to Nat’s frozen eggs, their dream of becoming parents seemingly dashed. Although Thailand’s Marriage Equality Act came into effect in January 2025, this reflects the legal changes still needed to grant same-sex couples the right to fertility treatments.
Against this backdrop of discrimination, ‘A Useful Ghost’ criticises people who serve causes that marginalise them and their communities. While empathising with the desire for opportunities that dominant forces may provide in exchange for compliance, the film emphasises their conditionality and makes a plea for solidarity. Although Nat initially refuses the government’s request, she agrees when a minister promises to help her and March have their own biological child in return. Her efforts result in scores of people tortured to erase the victims of political violence, both from their ghostly existence and cultural memory.
Nat’s conflict resonates especially during a global rise in authoritarianism, where some members of marginalised communities may support the institutions depriving them of their rights. One example of this may be seen in the case of Kat Cammack, a Republican representative who blamed the reluctance of medical providers to terminate her pregnancy on leftist “fearmongering”, instead of the restrictive abortion laws she sponsored. While Cammack eventually obtained the services she needed, how many people without her resources and connections are able to circumvent such legal barriers?
By weaving Nat’s tale through conversations between two characters, the film’s structure reiterates that it is not about one useful ghost or the family she married into. Rather, it includes ordinary people who are rarely lauded for their service and labour, who do not make it into the stories often told. Shifting the focus onto these interlocutors, the film does not end on the tragedy of Nat and March, but explodes in a climax that takes aim at those who silence others and displays the power of the people united.
Thailand’s tumultuous political history continues to be censored, especially when it involves military repression. However, ‘A Useful Ghost’ demonstrates optimism for transparency in discussions of politics and the past, along with solidarity in the search for accountability and change at home and abroad. Just as the film describes haunting as the deceased’s “protest against their circumstances”, the same applies to the act of remembering those the establishment would rather disappear, ensuring our ghosts are not forgotten.
