Sure, in A Helpful Ghost, there is a make-out scene between a person and a vacuum cleaner. A number of really. And none in the way in which you’d think about. (Except… have been you instantly imagining nipple play?)
Admittedly, the picture of a person cradling a vacuum within the film’s trailer is what put it towards the highest of my must-sees out of the 2025 Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant. I worth cinema that exhibits me one thing I’ve by no means seen earlier than. And I guarantee you, this wild Thai comedy has a variety of belongings you’ve by no means seen earlier than.
On the floor, it is the story — properly, tales — of ghosts who’ve possessed vacuum cleaners to reconnect to the individuals they’ve left behind. However extremely, author/director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke builds inside this undeniably foolish premise interwoven tales of affection, craving, and political riot.
Extremely, he does all that in a means that makes simply speaking about this film really feel like recounting a fever dream. It is little surprise the movie gained the Critics’ Week Grand Prix out of the Cannes Movie Pageant and has been chosen by Thailand as its submission to the Academy Awards for the worldwide characteristic movie class. It is a marvel.
A Helpful Ghost is a rapturous Russian doll of a narrative.
Boonbunchachoke births one story from one other from one other. His movie begins with a self-proclaimed “Tutorial Ladyboy” (Wisarut Homhuan), who buys a brand new vacuum to bust the mud coming in from a withering stone monument exterior a humble residence. Mud and vacuums will turn into a recurring component of every subsequent story, representing the persistent affliction of a paved-over previous and the societal stress to brush it away as an alternative of confronting it.
Shopping for a vacuum turns into a life-changing affair, as a result of this ladyboy’s new system is haunted — or so says the new repairman named Krong (Wanlop Rungkumjud), who comes to repair it. With a smoldering gaze, he tells a story of two different haunted vacuums. The primary is of a vengeful spirit who bothered a family-owned vacuum manufacturing facility. The second is of that manufacturing facility proprietor’s son March (Wisarut Himmarat), who was so misplaced in grief over the demise of his spouse Nat (Davika Hoorne) that she was compelled to return — as a vacuum, painted as pink as her dyed hair.
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Suman (Apasiri Nitibhon), the manufacturing facility proprietor, wasn’t keen on Nat whereas she was alive. She’s even much less a fan now that Nat’s a vacuum, sucking on March’s nipples along with her bristle attachment. A monk visiting the haunted manufacturing facility notes that ghosts return as a result of they bear in mind and are remembered. Primarily, as a ghost is forgotten by the dwelling, they fade into nothingness. So, Suman decides to electroshock the recollections of Nat proper out of March’s head.
Nevertheless, earlier than Nat is absolutely light, Suman’s household learns that Nat has a singular ability for getting into the desires of the dwelling. There, she will higher perceive the haunting ghosts of Thailand. And as soon as this “helpful ghost” has recognized them, these unuseful ghosts could be extinguished by electroshocking their family members into forgetting them.
Listening to this story, the Tutorial Ladyboy is repulsed by Nat’s willingness to activate her personal to take care of what she has. From there, Boonbunchachoke digs deeper into political allegory by means of a plotline involving a politician who needs Nat to eradicate the ghosts of these killed in a political bloodbath. And similar to that, this foolish story has a robust message that is achingly well timed.
Kink and queerness come into play in A Helpful Ghost.
Within the opening line of Boonbunchachoke’s movie, he identifies the viewers conduit as a LGBTQ+ particular person, the Tutorial Ladyboy, outlined mainly by his queerness and his mental curiosity. Later, when March’s mom is being dressed down by her in-laws over her parenting, they scold her for elevating her eldest homosexual and her second son to make out with a vacuum. This paired with a sprinkling of affection scenes between March and vacuum Nat and a number of other homosexual intercourse scenes suggests a throughline between these loves, deemed exterior the norm of an older, conservative, and ruthless faction.
Queerness itself is widely known in A Helpful Ghost. The Tutorial Ladyboy is a compassionate listener to Krong’s winding story. Their connection is on the spot, scorching, and satisfyingly resolved. One other subplot explores how homophobia in Thailand creates heartache and ghosts with unfinished enterprise. In the meantime, March’s homosexual brother — although sneered at by his aunts and uncles — is proven solely as joyful and loving together with his husband and their son, although they focus on transferring overseas to Australia.
Nat and March are straight, however as soon as she’s embodied in a vacuum, they now not fall throughout the acceptable heterocentric norms of his household and a band of monks, who swarm her and name her a “thick cunt” whereas they try to banish her. On this means, Nat turns into subjected to hatred over who she loves due to the physique she inhabits. And whereas this analogy may sound apparent, it performs out subtly as a result of Boonbunchachoke’s story is so stunning and unusual, you might be focusing extra on what the fuck is going on subsequent when you watch, solely to mirror on what all of it means later. And I am unable to cease interested by A Helpful Ghost. Its outrageous jokes, earnest romance, and gnarly twists are unforgettable.
This movie’s collision of queerness, comedy, and politics ought to draw Boonbunchachoke comparisons to John Waters or Pedro Almodóvar. However the finale, which turns sharper and deliciously menacing, feels extra in step with the political satires of Bong Joon Ho. With A Helpful Ghost, Boonbunchachoke delivers a a delirious imaginative and prescient, a hilarious and thought-provoking comedy that calls for to be seen and adored. It is simply phenomenal.
A Helpful Ghost was reviewed out of 2025 Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant.
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