“Talk to Me” was the feature debut of directors Danny and Michael Philippou. It was about a young woman named Mia (Sophia Wilde) whose mother took her own life two years earlier. Mia lives with her father, but spends many nights with her best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen), adrift and still in pain.
One night at a party, she is introduced to a truly surreal party game. One of the guests has brought a ceramic hand, bent into a handshake position. The actual origins of the hand are obscure, but it’s said to be cursed or haunted. When one lights a candle, takes the hand, and whispers “Talk to me,” the ghost of a random dead person will appear in front of them. If they also add “I let you in,” the ghost possesses them, allowing them to go wild for a few moments. If the candle is blown out before 90 seconds elapse, the ghost exits their body, and they fall into a state of exhilarated euphoria. Mia and her friends take turns getting possessed as casually as one might take bong rips.
Mia is eager to talk to her deceased mother, of course, but we learn over the course of “Talk to Me” that the ghosts that appear to you aren’t always honest, often causing hallucinations and delusions. Naturally, one of the party guests hangs onto their ghost a little too long and Mia enters a spiral of depression and misery that she may not be able to escape from.
It’s a scary premise, but it’s also realistic and honest about trauma, desperate sadness, and financial hardship. “Talk to Me” was reviewed by 294 critics and received positive review from the L.A. Times, The Observer, RogerEbert.com, and The Wrap.
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