Dragonfly (2003) * 1/2

Directed by: Tom Shadyac

Starring: Kevin Costner, Kathy Bates, Joe Morton, Susanna Thompson


I have a hard time believing in ghosts. Movies like Dragonfly are a big reason why, but I'll explain that in a moment. I can understand the need to believe in them. It's comforting to think that a loved one is around still in some form; somehow participating in your life even after the body is gone. Ghost movies are inherently silly. It's just a question of how much silliness you're willing to put up with before you start to become bored with it. If a ghost of a loved one behaved the way the one in Dragonfly does, I'd just as soon have them go to the great beyond and leave me alone.

One thing I've recognized in TV shows about hauntings and spirits is that they are very, very indirect in how they choose to contact the living. Things rattle. Winds blow hard. There may or may not be a creak or two where there shouldn't be. And the haunted person is absolutely convinced a ghost is present. But because the ghost is so cryptic, everything can be interpreted in different ways. If you're a ghost and you can interact in any way with the living, wouldn't you just go full throttle and try and have a conversation? What the hell, it's not like the person won't believe you.

Dragonfly is a maddening film. It stars Kevin Costner as a Chicago doctor who loses his pregnant wife in a bus accident while she's tending to the sick and needy in Venezuela.  Soon after the funeral, Doc begins to notice strange things, like dragonflies hovering outside of his window (the wife loved dragonflies according to a line of dialogue), things falling to the ground on their own, and sick children Doc has never met who seem to be calling for him by name while being brought into intensive care.

At first, he dismisses these things as odd, but not supernatural. For the first nearly 80 minutes of the film, Costner experiences all kinds of oddities and becomes convinced his dead wife is trying to contact him. Why? Well, the reason is never made clear. The ghost is inconsiderate that way. The ghost is able to use sick children to speak her message, physically draw strange symbols for Costner to interpret, rearrange closets, and even show up as a vision outside of Costner's window, but can't go the extra mile and explain why she so desperately needs to contact him. If I were Costner, grieving or not, I'd beg her to stop torturing me and spit it out.

It's not just this ridiculous plot hole that has me disliking Dragonfly. The film itself is rather dead itself in terms of tone and pacing. There's not a lot of joy in telling a suspenseful story here. Things kind of meander to the conclusion while being all too solemn for its own good. Costner does what he can to be a sympathetic hero, but everything is dialed down too much. This sort of dialing down by director Shadyac that would've been more useful in Ace Ventura and Liar, Liar, two of his previous hits.

The conclusion? I won't dare give it away, but it's the sort of ending that had me asking way too many questions instead of being blindsided. Such as, how exactly did the ghost's cryptic hints lead Costner to where he needed to be? What if Costner never read the map at home which explained what the symbols were? This is a film in which a conversation like the one between Hamlet and his father's ghost is sorely needed.