FANTASIA 2021: Ghosting Gloria
Los Modernos FilmsGloria (Stefanía Tortorella) is a single woman working at a local bookstore, often gossiping with her co-worker and friend Sandra (Nenan Pelenur). Sandra often tells Gloria her promiscuous tales, a total contrast to Gloria’s independent life. Gloria complains of her lack of sleep, constantly being woken up by her upstairs neighbours having wildly loud sex, a slap in the face since Gloria herself has never experienced an orgasm. Upon hearing this Sandra urges Gloria to move into a house a boyfriend of hers is renting out in the suburbs. There Gloria meets the man of her dreams, Dante (Federico Guerra), and experiences pleasure for the first time. Except Dante isn’t exactly human, he’s a ghost.
Ghosting Gloria comes from directing duo Mauro Sarser (who also wrote the screenplay) and Marcela Matta. The pair seamlessly blend genres in crafting Ghosting Gloria and create a beautiful romance. Although the first half of the film feels more exciting as it focuses on Gloria’s relationship with Dante’s ghost, the latter half is a bit more clunky as it focuses on Gloria’s relationships with human men. Sarser and Matta also do a wonderful job at creating the film’s illusions, as to whether the ghost of Dante is even real, and how they make the ghost feel real, whether it’s shoving books off shelves or his silhouette under Gloria’s sheets, or even an all-out haunting launching objects flying around Gloria’s kitchen. Stefanía Tortorella who plays Gloria also helps craft the romance throughout Ghosting Gloria. She has chemistry with every single other actor in the film and truly makes the audience fall in love with Gloria. She brings a kindness and bashfulness to Gloria and is also a totally different woman when her character is receiving pleasure from Dante.
Ghosting Gloria (Muerto con Gloria) brilliantly blurs the lines between romance, comedy, and horror. It is also a film about maturity and the choice between fantasy and reality. The relationship between Gloria and Dante is totally idyllic. The focus is entirely on Gloria’s pleasure, and Dante helps her around the house asking nothing in return. During lunch with Sandra, Gloria states that she has all the benefits of a relationship and all the benefits of being single. Later in the film, Gloria begins exploring relationships with men who happen to still be alive, and she is forced to adapt to real-life relationships, instead of the idealized romance with a ghost.
Ghosting Gloria is obviously an incredibly sex-positive film, especially for its female characters. Sandra is never shamed for her promiscuity, Gloria enjoys hearing her stories and only asks if she would ever settle down with any of the men, to which Sandra replies that she is single and enjoying herself. All of Gloria’s encounters with Dante are focused on her, throughout their relationship she is constantly seen loudly and enthusiastically enjoying her pleasure. However, the film does gloss over consent within Gloria and Dante’s relationship. Initially, Dante is invisible and does not speak. In their first encounter, Dante pleasures Gloria in her sleep, and fortunately, she happens to enjoy it when she awakens. Later when Gloria tries to communicate with Dante through ouija boards and mediums the topic of consent does not come up. It could have been an interesting concept to explore, however, the lack of consent further pushes the notion that her relationship with Dante isn’t real and is just all in Gloria’s fantasies.
Ghosting Gloria is a great film that tiptoes between romance, comedy, and horror. While it lags a bit in the film’s second half, it begs the audience to consider the philosophies of pleasure, whether it is better to remain in fantasy or truly experience the reality of relationships, negatives and all.