Blithe Spirit

Blithe Spirit is a 2020 British comedy film. The world premiere took place at the Mill Valley Film Festival in 2020, and the film was released to a wide audience on January 15, 2021.

Charles Condomine, a successful writer, wants to learn more about spiritualism for his new screenplay. He invites an eccentric female medium, Madame Arcati, to hold a seance at his house.

At the seance, Madame Arcati accidentally summons the ghost of Charles ' first wife, Elvira, who died seven years ago. The medium leaves, unaware of the consequences of his actions. Only Charles can see and hear Elvira, and his second wife, Ruth, does not believe that the ghost exists, until she paints a mustache and horns on her portrait with lipstick.

Elvira is attractively decadent, unconventional, and moody, in contrast to the more reserved Ruth, the daughter of the film director for whom Charles is writing the screenplay. The ghostly Elvira makes constant and increasingly desperate attempts to destroy Charles ' current marriage. Charles also tricks Elvira into dictating an interesting script to him, since he writes quite poorly.

Soon, the ghostly ex-wife realizes that Charles will get rid of her as soon as the script is finished. Hoping to kill him so that she can take him away from her second wife forever, she breaks the brakes on the family car. But Ruth gets behind the wheel, who goes after the medium to banish Elvira.

After Ruth's car falls off a cliff without brakes, Charles breaks down and tries to attack Elvira, for which he ends up in a madhouse. Elvira frees him to help her escape back to the afterlife. Madame Arcati performs a ritual and tries to banish Elvira, but instead returns to our world the ghost of first Ruth, and then her beloved who died in the war. The ghosts of Charles ' wives quickly find a common language and leave, leaving him alone.

The film is still being shot based on Charles ' script, but immediately after the shooting process is completed, reporters begin to accuse him of plagiarism. Rushing out of the studio, he sees Ruth driving a car and Elvira in the next seat. Ruth sells it and drives off into the sunset with Elvira.

The film shows several ghosts: the two wives of the main character, himself, and the beloved of a woman who died in the war-a medium.

The ghost of the protagonist's first wife appears after a seance. It is seen only by the husband (the ghost is not reflected even in the mirror), and at first it is translucent, but gradually becomes denser. As the story progresses, the ghost, initially unable to interact with the real world, gains the ability to move objects and touch living people. As the medium later explains, the more real a ghost is, the more the person to whom it appears wants to see it.

The rest of the ghosts also appear as a result of spiritualistic rituals-except for the ghost of the main character himself, who may only be seen by other ghosts.

The reason for the appearance of ghosts remains undisclosed. The medium's abilities are directly rejected (she turns out to be a charlatan), and rituals that aim to banish the first ghost lead to the appearance of several more.

The reason for the manifestations of poltergeist (flying objects, a piano playing spontaneously, and a moving car) is the interaction of ghosts with the real world. The medium points out that the influence of a ghost on the real world is stronger the more it is welcomed by the person to whom it appears.