In line with the films, The Sixth Sense (1999) and The Others (2001), Passengers (2008) centers
on the (hypothetical) question of whether the walking dead have to be convinced
that they are indeed dead rather than still living. In all of those films, and
even Ghost (1990),
the dead who stick around as ghosts rather than immediately pass on to another realm
have something to come to terms with, or work out. The astute viewer of these
films is apt to wonder whether in the story-worlds of the films, as well as in
real life, all that is going on is really just in the dying brain of the dead
person, which is the case in Jacob’s
Ladder (1990). We know that a dying brain secretes a hallucinatory hormone.
As for whether there is even an actual afterlife, such a question is still beyond
our reach, at least before death. I contend that Passengers hinges on
whether the entire movie takes place in Claire’s mind. The answer hinges on the
nature of the existence of the other characters who are dead. If they have
their own agendas rather than are around to help Claire come to terms with the
fact that she is actually dead—that she was on the plane that crashed with no
survivors—then the film posits the existence of ghosts in our world rather than
just in dying brains. The issue, in short, is existential and metaphysical.
The full essay is at "Passengers."
