We Have a Ghost (2023)

Christopher Landon's We Have a Ghost arrives as a supernatural comedy with a bowling shirt, a mute phantom, and a family willing to monetize him before the opening credits have settled. The Presleys are Black, and the film casts them with an easy, modern confidence that never turns into a thesis. Jahi Di'Allo Winston and Anthony Mackie anchor the household, and the supporting players drift through with the kind of diversity that reads as deliberate without demanding a parade. Race is not the subject here. The ghost is. That distinction matters for the ledger.

On the progressive front, the film is mostly a shrug in a nice cardigan. There is no LGBTQ storyline, and a cameo from Bob the Drag Queen is decoration, not argument. Women like Joy and Dr. Monroe are capable and move the plot, but the movie has no interest in dismantling patriarchy. It does take a mild swipe at the father's scheme to sell Ernest to YouTube and a ghost-hunting television show. The critique lands on personal greed, not the machinery of capitalism. No climate sermon, no body-positivity detour, no neurodivergent arc, no historical rewriting. The film is here to tell a ghost story, not to reorganize society.

Its moral instruction is gentle. Frank learns not to exploit his son's spectral friend, and the film asks us to value family over viral fame. That is a lesson, but it is delivered with a soft hand, not a lecture hall. The result is pleasant, uneven, and culturally modest. It wants to be an eighties pastiche with a warm center, and it largely succeeds at being harmless. In the taxonomy of social consciousness, this is a film that shows up on time, says something polite, and goes home. The classification is clear. Mild.