In my humble opinion, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) is the greatest American novel ever written.  It captures this country at a critical moment in our country’s history while also touching on timeless themes like longing and loss.  It also does not hurt that it is short.  If you have a day to dedicate to it, you can read it cover-to-cover in less than twelve hours, and it will not have been time wasted.  I had no idea that it would be such an integral part of the recently released to Netflix Girl Haunts Boy.  Indeed, the only reason I put it on was out of a vague sense of duty to you all to include some modern titles to balance my recent trend of classic cinema.  The fact that it features Fitzgerald’s classic novel is one of the many surprising features of a movie I enjoyed more than I expected.  I did not appreciate the fact that it is a ghost story, or the references to the occult.  I will get into those in a moment.  At the same time, it had me in tears at the end, and that will always elevate the material for me.

Such was my lack of anticipation for anything having to do with The Great Gatsby in Girl Haunts Boy that when the film began, I thought it was somehow playing another flick.  The few seconds of the preview suggest nothing about an initial setting in 1928, though I probably needed to watch it longer.  At any rate, Beatrix “Bea” Jenkins (Peyton List) is on a class field trip to the local museum of natural history when she decides to be adventurous.  That is using my Christian charity as she sneaks into a restricted area, breaks into a small display case, and slips an ancient Egyptian ring that is also glowing green into her finger.  A security guard comes to escort her out before she can return the jewelry to its rightful place.  Almost as soon as she steps onto the street, distracted by the object, she is struck and killed by a car.  Almost 100 years later and Cole Sanchez (Michael Cimino) is pulling up to a new town and home with his mother, Catarina Sanchez (Andrea Navedo).  I would mention a father, but he died suddenly of a heart attack, prompting their move.  As Cole tries to adjust to changes in location and high schools, he finds the same ring we had previously seen Bea take.  Noticing the shimmer, he decides to put it on his finger.  When he does, Bea appears.  It does not take her long to note the cause and effect between his wearing the gold object and her materialization before his eyes.  She had been spending so long trapped inside her former house with no one to talk to that her burst of energy scares him as much as being able to see her.  Even though it is terrifying to be living with a specter, he eventually gives in to his curiosity and begins to communicate with her.  Because she passed away as a teenager, she is naturally interested in what has been going on in the world.  In filling her in, she must overcome the fact that it has been almost a century since she died instead of the few decades she presumed.  They start to spend more time with one another, learning that they are each music aficionados.  They also figure out pretty quickly that she can go wherever he does so long as he is wearing the ring.  Wanting to see what her old school looks like these days, he takes her to class one day, though she remains invisible to everyone but him. Nonetheless, the one living friend he has been able to make, Lydia Anderson (Phoebe Holden), senses that something is amiss.  Lydia also works at a local store dedicated to the occult, as well as running a YouTube channel on the subject, so she fancies herself as being in-tune with the astral plane.  Her suspicion that Cole is being haunted is confirmed when she does some research on the jewelry on his finger.  It is the Egyptian love ring, and according to legend, if it is separated from its other half as Bea did, than the person doing the separating will be cursed.  As she is discovering this information, it also happens to be Halloween, the day of Phoebe’s accident.  To cheer her up, Cole decides to take her into New York City to something called a “Gatsby Party.”  You may have seen this in other movies, but if not, just know that it is an excuse for people to dress up like it is the 1920s and listen to jazz from that era.  While in attendance, Bea and Cole find out that her form is solid at this time, allowing others to see her and for her to properly dance with him.  The next day is when Lydia finally informs Cole about the curse, also adding that the one day of the year Bea could be alive is on the anniversary of her death.  Lydia also did some research, discovering that the ring’s other half is in a New York museum and about to be auctioned.  The theory goes that if he can obtain the gold piece and reunite the halves, Bea’s curse will be lifted and she will be able to “move on.”  Because Cole has grown fond of Bea, he hesitates in buying the object and thus misses his window.  She is understandably upset when he gets around to admitting his mistake.  While there is definite chemistry between the two, she does not want to spend eternity in this state, watching others grow old but remaining as she is now.  Thankfully, he is able to get one last chance to fix the situation, by calling the museum and learning that the ring is still on the premises.  Sneaking into the institution with Bea, they find the right box.  With a tearful goodbye, she goes back to 1928 and the moment she took the jewelry, replacing it and moving on with her life.  Cole is able to witness this by flipping through the photograph album of hers he found when he moved in and seeing her accomplishments in its pages.  The last scene is of him playing the guitar in the school auditorium with her, through the mists of time, imagining him in that spot from her point in the past.

Most will understandably dismiss Girl Haunts Boy as a teenage drama with ghosts, no matter the emotional weight I have just described to you.  I was not kidding when I said in the introduction that it had me in tears as they gazed upon each other through time and space.  I also mentioned how there are themes of longing and loss.  What I did not do well in the synopsis is discussing the emotional trauma felt by Cole relating to the passing of his father.  It is from dad that he got his love of music, which also helps in how he connects with Bea.  Ultimately, he is holding onto the past, and his lesson is that he must let that go and move on as she wants.  It may be somewhat of a contradiction of terms, but she is the embodiment of the dangers of living in the past.  Luckily, we do not need to encounter a ghost in order to know the folly of this attitude.  Jesus practically says these very words to Mary Magdalene in John 20:17 when he encounters her weeping by his tomb after His resurrection.  This is not to say that we should be happy when we lose loved ones.  Indeed, the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, specifically verse four, talk about how those who mourn are blessed for they will be comforted.  The danger is doing what Cole does in allowing the auction to slip away, potentially dooming Bea to perpetual imprisonment.  The Catholic Church defines love as desiring good for another.  As much as they might like each other, it is clearly not right for her to be trapped in the wrong century, which would not be seeking good for her.  This is all, of course, skirting the ancient Egyptian sorcery that should also be avoided.  It is Catarina that helps Cole to accept what he cannot, doing so by talking about how much she misses his father.  Carrying on with one’s life is not a betrayal to the deceased.  Denying it, as is logical in light of Scripture, can be working against God’s grace.  These painful moments wound us, but God wants to heal them, which is impossible if we cannot let them go.  Finally, “letting go” is probably the wrong way of putting it because the good memories, as we see in the movie, can help us to get to the right head and heart space regarding loss.  God wants this for us as much as we do.

In a larger sense, Girl Haunts Boy reveals that God has a plan for us, and it is not to fall in love with ghosts.  It is also to not get involved with people who are into witchcraft, though this is the only real flaw in the film from a Catholic perspective.  Despite this, I confess that I wanted something to happen where Bea and Cole could end up together.  It is not realistic, but then again, neither is the film.  Anyway, it is one that I recommend, as silly as this might sound.