David Lowery is a visual poet. Throughout his celebrated career, the Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Pete’s Dragon, and A Ghost Story director has leaned on visual language and unconventional film grammar to connect with audiences, championing the emotional resonance of imagery over traditional narrative structure. In many ways, his films are in the same vein as American auteur Terrence Malick: thoughtful and dense, visually resplendent, whispery tone poems designated strictly for the Film Buff crowd. In that capacity, Lowery suffers Malick’s shortcomings, particularly as it pertains to resting too much within the opaque interiority of his characters and letting plotting fall by the wayside.
