The Laws of Ghost Town

Last night I watched the movie Ghost Town, starring the very, very funny Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni and Greg Kinnear. The premise of the film is that Dr. Bertram Pincus, DDS, (Ricky Gervais) died for approximately 7 minutes during a routine colonoscopy and now he can see ghosts. Frank (Kinnear) is dead and is looking for Dr. Pincus to help him move on. Frank thinks that the reason he's earthbound is because he is supposed to stop his widow Gwen's (Leoni) impending marriage. However, he wasn't exactly the model husband when he was alive, and on the day he died his wife discovered that he was looking to buy an apartment for his mistress.

Although Dr. Pincus hates living people, and dead ones even more, he agrees to help Frank only because Frank promises to make the rest of the dead people leave him alone if they can stop the wedding. Predictably, they stop the wedding and Dr. Pincus falls in love with Gwen.

But wait! Frank hasn't crossed over yet! The film is actually working on the premise that ghosts are not trapped because they have unfinished business, but because the living have unfinished business with them. Frank is trapped because Gwen is still angry with him for not only cheating on her, but for dying before she had a chance to confront him and find out why it wasn't enough for him that she loved him. Aww...

The movie is extremely funny, if a little predictable. But, it's a romantic comedy, and by all estimations romantic comedies are predictable. Ricky Gervais is probably one of the funniest men alive today (and the reason that if you've seen the original British version of The Office, Steve Carrell's sad pale imitation will not satisfy). Tea Leoni is incredibly funny, and Greg Kinnear is outstanding.

Here's my one problem with it: When I watched the special features, they noted that one of the biggest challenges was the laws of ghosting. Ghosts cannot speak to the living, they cannot interact with things in the living world (like picking things up), they wear the clothes they died in (which makes me hope I don't die today) and they can walk through things. They gave Greg Kinnear one prop, a BlackBerry he had in his hand when he died, but he even notes at one point that Dr. Pincus is a sadist for leaving the newspaper open to a cell phone ad all day, emphasizing that he is helpless to move things in the living world.

I have no problem with the ghost laws. However, what I do have a problem with is that the ghosts in the film sit on the furniture. If you are unable to pick things up or grasp things, if you walk through walls, and if anything you come in contact with goes right through you, how can you sit on the couch?