How to Shoot a Ghost (2025) Short Film Review: A Tender Humanist Exploration of the Anxieties of Boundless Rejection

“How to Shoot a Ghost” is a short film about two souls (played by Jessie Buckley and Josef Akiki) roaming around the streets of Athens, trying to understand their place in this world. They are newly dead, but the city is not new to them. So, the act of looking at it from the other side of life, without being tangibly or visibly present, opens them to reinvention and potential reinterpretation. That is why the film is inherently poetic. Yet, it resists the urge to limit itself to its beauty and is rooted in the heartbreaking reality of its characters. Even while looking back at the past, the film does not romanticize it. It reflects how tragedies continue to exist in their architecture, whether literal or otherwise. 

The short film, directed by Charlie Kaufman and written by Eva H.D., offers an understanding of these two characters through fragments of their past and present. These fragments do not reveal the exact details about the lives they have led, their joys or maladies. Yet, it all feels oddly specific since the film gets closer to the emotional truth, as the camera hovers around the faces and places the two characters visit or revisit. Besides the footage from their past and present, the film includes archival footage to give us a sense of the city’s tragic history, as it follows two strangers seeking a sense of home in what remains of the city and of themselves. Through that fusion, it gently acknowledges how the history of a person is also the history of these places, seeping into their worldviews. 

Thematically, it is similar to Kaufman’s past work, where characters have had their struggles with a human connection. Whether in “Synecdoche, New York,” “Anomalisa,” or “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” he has followed characters overwhelmed by their existence, whether in the lives they lived or those they created. Similarly, in “How to Shoot,” we meet two people trying to capture or interpret reality through their art. One is a photographer, while the other is a translator. So, besides the objective truth, their individual context shapes the world the film presents to us.

What would the world look like for people who always felt abandoned or ignored throughout their lives? Would they haunt those who wronged them, or find other modes of closure? The film hopes we reflect on it, as the ghosts reflect on the regrets and possibilities from their human lives. Thus, instead of a story of revenge or malice, it becomes one of warmth and compassion. The ghosts seek that warmth in each other, just as they do in those they left behind. We witness their reality or their attempt to hold on to it through fleeting flashes, whose transcience lends itself to a sense of impermanence, echoed throughout the short.

Even before being ghosts, their lives were filled with feelings of mounting rejection. The short addresses the socio-political aspects that affect one long past their existence or immediate aftermath. It shows people being ignored, even after being glaringly visible. It also acknowledges the effects of displacement and the scars it leaves behind. So, even if not implied, you can’t help but reflect on its real-life parallels, where people are leading their lives being dehumanized and in despair, and without any place they can call home. Thus, despite a core dreaminess of its premise, the film is not a routine travelogue that captures beauty without acknowledging pain or the everyday horrors. 

Eval H.D.’s poetry captures the interconnectedness of all those elements, as the film follows two platonic soulmates seeking comfort in the only presence that sees them instead of seeing through them. Her narration does not hinder the film’s quieter, floaty tone. Instead, it remains feather soft, faithful to a film that is essentially a tone poem. She speaks about love and suffering, but her words remain elusive, offering a layer to decode instead of overexplaining itself or stating the obvious. As it happens, the footage featuring the actors goes back and forth between feeling dewey and fizzy, faithful to the characters’ newfound sense of freedom through rediscovery with an underlying, lingering melancholy. 

Kaufman’s films, whether as a writer or a filmmaker, have often dealt with the interiority of their characters. “How to Shoot a Ghost” is similar in that regard, although his approach pivots from the rest. He captures the weight of all-consuming emotions, but does not let that consume the film itself. That approach works for “Synedoche” to convey the character’s toiling existence. Yet, a gentler handling of the material suits “How to Shoot,” which in part is about the freeing sense of letting go. Jessie Buckley and Josef Akiki echo that sentiment, even in the fleeting glimpses they appear in in this bittersweet, surrealist ode to the act of living. 

Read More: Understanding Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

How to Shoot a Ghost (2025) Movie Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd
How to Shoot a Ghost (2025) Movie Cast: Jessie Buckley, Josef Akiki

Where to watch How to Shoot a Ghost