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Unlike the logic-defying supernatural phenomena that drive its plot forward, Thai feature A Useful Ghost (Phi Chidi Kha) should not work, with its jarring shifts in tone and cray-cray mix of genres — and yet it does. Writer-director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s feature debut, which premiered in the Critics’ Week sidebar at Cannes, writes its own rule book.

It starts off farcically with household and industrial appliances possessed by dead spirits seeking their still-living loved ones; morphs into nesting sets of surprisingly sincere love stories, some of them lustily queer; and ends with the dawn of a violent class war spanning both spiritual and earthly planes. Boonbunchachoke’s skillful toggling between comedy, melodrama and polemic helped to spark interest on the Croisette where camp Thai content goes over well. A long afterlife on the festival circuit awaits.

For all its playfulness, there’s an intellectual heft to A Useful Ghost that exerts its own gravity.

Imagine a vacuum cleaner that coughs up more than dust—a quiet intruder that brings a widow back to life through its whirring hoses. A Useful Ghost premiered in Cannes Critics’ Week as Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s striking debut, marking Thailand’s arrival on the supernatural-romance map.

At its heart is a framing device worthy of a narrative-driven indie game: an “Academic Ladyboy” orders a high-powered hoover to combat Bangkok’s choking dust, only to discover it’s haunted. The story then shifts to March, the grieving son of a factory matriarch, whose late wife Nat has returned as a sentient vacuum. Their reunion sparks a series of emotional and moral puzzles, as Nat uses her new form to cleanse lingering spirits born of workplace tragedy.

Tonally, the film oscillates between deadpan comedy and tender romance, punctuated by moments of social reckoning. Its humor feels as precise as a well-designed game...