# Becoming Human (2025) Review: A Ghost in the Picture House > Becoming Human is Polen Ly's Cambodian fantasy about a ghost who guards an old cinema facing demolition, a gentle, melancholy fable about memory and change. Canonical: https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/becoming-human-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 Yes, with reservations. It is a tender, unusual ghost story for patient viewers who love films about cinema and memory, though its quiet allegory can feel slight. ## Is Becoming Human worth watching? **Yes, with reservations. Becoming Human is a quietly lovely Cambodian ghost story that turns a crumbling cinema into a meditation on memory, loss and a country changing faster than its past can keep up.** Polen Ly's feature is modest in scale but distinctive in feeling, and its central idea, a spirit who belongs to a building that is about to disappear, is a genuinely poignant one. The reservation is that the film's gentle, allegorical approach sometimes leaves its characters and relationships thinner than its themes. ## What is Becoming Human about? [Becoming Human](https://celluloidscore.com/movies/becoming-human-2025/) centres on Thida, the spirit guardian of an old cinema that is facing demolition. As the building's future narrows, she is forced to think about what she is, a ghost tied to a place, and whether to accept the possibility of rebirth into a new life. Her world shifts when she meets Hai, a living person with whom she forms an unexpectedly deep bond. Their connection pushes Thida to confront not only her spiritual destiny but the realities of the country outside the cinema's doors, one undergoing rapid economic and social change. The cast includes Serak Savorn, Piseth Chhun, Pin Sreybor, Preab Pouch and Thon Sovakiry. Polen Ly directs a Cambodian production in Khmer that runs a compact 99 minutes. After screening at Venice, it won the Golden Hanoman, the top prize at Indonesia's Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival. ## A cinema as a vessel for memory The film's most resonant choice is its setting. An old picture house is already a place full of ghosts: the stories once projected there, the audiences who came and went, the city that grew up around it. By making its heroine a spirit bound to such a building, Becoming Human turns the familiar lament for dying cinemas into something more personal and uncanny. For a country whose film culture was nearly erased in the 1970s, a guardian spirit clinging to a doomed cinema carries obvious weight, and Ly lets that resonance sit in the background rather than underlining it. The [fantasy](https://celluloidscore.com/genres/fantasy/) premise draws on the idea of rebirth that runs through Buddhist belief in Cambodia, which gives Thida's dilemma a spiritual dimension beyond a simple haunting. ## Change measured on a human scale The relationship between Thida and Hai gives the film its emotional thread. It is less a conventional romance than a meeting between two kinds of existence, one fixed in the past and one moving forward, and the film uses their bond to ask what it would mean to let go of a place, or a self, that has defined you. Outside the cinema, the country's rapid economic change supplies the pressure. The demolition hanging over the building works as a clear, quietly devastating metaphor for a society in which older spaces and ways of life are being cleared away, and the film's sympathy clearly lies with what is being lost. ## Where the allegory thins out The film's restraint is both its strength and its limitation. Because Thida and Hai function partly as symbols, their bond can feel more like an idea than a lived relationship, and the supporting characters are sketched lightly. The pacing is deliberate, and viewers who want a clearer narrative drive may find the middle stretch drifting. Its themes are rich, but the [drama](https://celluloidscore.com/genres/drama/) around them is sometimes too delicate to hold full attention. ## Who should watch Becoming Human? It is best for viewers who enjoy slow, poetic fantasy, films about the magic and memory of cinema, and anyone curious about the new wave of Cambodian filmmaking. At 99 minutes, it is an easy commitment. Its themes of death, loss and upheaval make it better suited to teenagers and adults than to young children. Kindred fantasies: - [Pan's Labyrinth](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/pans-labyrinth-2006-review/), a darker fantasy that also uses the supernatural to reckon with a nation's history. - [It's a Wonderful Life](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/it-s-a-wonderful-life-1946-review/), a classic about an otherworldly helper and the value of a single life in a changing town. ## The verdict Becoming Human is a tender, melancholy fable with a strong central image and a real sense of what is lost when old places vanish. Its characters can feel more symbolic than fully alive, but its quiet confidence and its affection for cinema make it a rewarding discovery for patient viewers. **Rating: 3.5/5** ## Related title - [Becoming Human (2025)](https://celluloidscore.com/movies/becoming-human-2025/) ## Editorial - [Editorial standards](https://celluloidscore.com/about/editorial-policy/) - [Report a correction](https://celluloidscore.com/about/corrections/)