Patrick Swayze Knows How Sam Feels

The film ghost is a classic. It has all the ingredients of a good romantic movie, yet it also is a very deeply searching and intriguing film, leaving the viewer with lots of questions and thoughts about the afterlife. I rank it as up there with other great films tackling similar genres such as Field of Dreams, Contact and What Dreams May Come. What makes it interesting is that it is also a study in human behaviour, aspirations, goals and dreams.  It paints a very real picture of how our hopes are sometimes cruelly dashed by a seeming quirk of fate and this is mirrored in real life…illness, loss, tragedy, hardship, pain and death.  In the film, the main character Sam Wheat is played very sympathetically by the newly deceased Patrick Swayze who himself recently succumbed to pancreatic cancer and as stated, fate has robbed the public of a very talented and much admired actor, not to mention his close relatives and family too!   Swayze played Sam very ably and convincingly as the soul who finds itself very much alive after physical death of its body and opts to remain earthbound until it avenges its death.  There are some amazing observations made in the film such as being non corporeal and being able to walk through solid objects like doors and walls and the manipulation of physical objects by kinetic energy, moving them from one place to another…..all classic poltergeist/ghost signs in real life.  The film also touches on the idea of divine justice and retribution, where the baddy gets dragged presumably to hell by weird shadowy figures and other good souls get taken ‘up’ into the white light of the afterworld.  The interface between the so called ‘living’ and the dead is aptly demonstrated by whoopi goldberg as the medium, being taken over by Sam, this would be known in the trade as channeling and trance/physical mediumship. All in all a very satisfying film that tries to answer in some part the baffling and deep questions of what happens to us when we die and leave our physical bodies and in the time honoured tradition of films with a good ending….leaves us with hope!  The sad part is that Patrick Swayze will now know the real truth, irrespective of the part he played….he has the edge on us who are still alive. I feel sure that Partick will be trying out his dirty dance moves and enthralling others in the afterlife as soon as he completes his orientation up there.  I would like to say rest in peace Patrick but I know he’ll be enjoying the fruits of his earthly labours up there and involved in all sorts of fascinating projects. Farewell tho’ to a big talent.