# A Useful Ghost (2025) Review: Haunting by Vacuum Cleaner > A Useful Ghost is a Thai comedy about a dead woman who returns inside a vacuum cleaner, a deadpan love story that turns into sharp satire about memory. Canonical: https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/a-useful-ghost-2025-review/ Published: 2026-07-23 Last updated: 2026-09-24 Author: Kaiser Khan — Founder & Editor Language: English Review basis: direct-viewing Spoilers: none Rating: 3.5/5 ## Verdict Mostly yes. It is a bold, strange and often very funny Thai satire, best for adventurous viewers who enjoy deadpan absurdism and can ride out a long, uneven second half. ## Is A Useful Ghost worth watching? **Yes, for viewers with a taste for the offbeat. A Useful Ghost takes a gloriously silly premise, a dead wife haunting her husband through a household appliance, and turns it into one of the most original political comedies of recent years.** Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke's debut feature is deadpan, tender and quietly angry, with a strong central performance from Davika Hoorne. The reservation is that its ambition outruns its shape: at 130 minutes it sprawls, and the satire grows more opaque for viewers unfamiliar with modern Thai history. ## What is A Useful Ghost about? Nat ([Davika Hoorne](https://celluloidscore.com/stars/southeast-asia/thailand/davika-hoorne/)) has recently died, but she is not ready to leave. Her grieving husband suffers badly from dust, and Nat returns as a ghost inhabiting a vacuum cleaner, determined to keep their home clean and to go on caring for him. Their unusual reunion is sweet and ridiculous in equal measure. It is also complicated. Nat is not the only spirit in the house, and not everyone in her husband's family welcomes a ghost in the home, however helpful. To earn her place, Nat has to prove she is a "useful" ghost, and that means dealing with the ones judged useless. From that simple domestic setup, the film opens out into something much stranger and more pointed. [A Useful Ghost](https://celluloidscore.com/movies/a-useful-ghost-2025/) is written and directed by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke. It is a Thai film in Thai, running 130 minutes, and it won the Silver Hanoman Award at the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival in 2025 after its festival run began at Cannes. ## A love story told with a straight face The first stretch is the film's most purely delightful. Ratchapoom plays the premise completely straight: the vacuum cleaner is treated as a spouse, with tender conversations, jealous relatives and even romance, and the comedy comes from how seriously everyone takes it. The flat, carefully composed images and unhurried pacing make the absurdity funnier. Davika Hoorne, one of Thailand's best-known stars, is excellent in a role that often requires her to act through a machine or appear only as a presence. She gives Nat warmth, humour and a quiet sadness, and she keeps the love story at the centre even as the film grows more political. The supporting cast plays their reactions with a dry, almost documentary calm that suits the material. ## A ghost story about who gets remembered The film's real subject gradually comes into focus. The idea of useful and useless ghosts becomes a sharp metaphor for how societies decide which deaths matter and which can be quietly erased, and the film draws on Thailand's history of political unrest and protest to make that point. Queer characters and themes also run through the story, adding layers of desire and marginalisation. This is where the film is at its most daring and most rewarding. It uses the gentle rules of a ghost comedy to talk about power, memory and forgetting, and some of its images linger long after the jokes fade. ## Where the satire loses its grip The film is less successful at holding all of this together. The shift from domestic comedy to political allegory is abrupt, and the middle section wanders as new characters and ideas pile up. Viewers without some knowledge of Thai political history may find parts of the satire obscure, and the deadpan tone, charming at first, can become distancing over two-plus hours. ## Who should watch A Useful Ghost? It suits adventurous viewers who enjoy absurdist [comedy](https://celluloidscore.com/genres/comedy/), festival cinema and films that mix genres freely. Allow over two hours and a patient mood. It includes sexual content, queer themes and references to political violence, making it a film for adults. If it intrigues you, try these next: - [Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives](https://celluloidscore.com/movies/uncle-boonmee-who-can-recall-his-past-lives-2010/), another Thai film where ghosts, memory and national history quietly overlap. - [Tropical Malady](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/tropical-malady-2004-review/), for a more mysterious Thai blend of queer romance and the supernatural. - [How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/how-to-make-millions-before-grandma-dies-2024-review/), a warmer, more conventional Thai family comedy-drama about death and inheritance. ## The verdict A Useful Ghost is an inventive, funny and pointed debut that turns a ridiculous premise into a meditation on love, memory and political forgetting. It is too long and uneven to be fully satisfying, but its originality and Davika Hoorne's lovely central performance make it well worth seeking out. **Rating: 3.5/5** ## Related title - [A Useful Ghost (2025)](https://celluloidscore.com/movies/a-useful-ghost-2025/) ## Editorial - [Editorial standards](https://celluloidscore.com/about/editorial-policy/) - [Report a correction](https://celluloidscore.com/about/corrections/)