A Useful Ghost 2025

In a city clawing its way back to modern life through sweeping renewal projects, a self-described “academic ladyboy” brings home a new vacuum cleaner to tidy his small apartment. At night the device coughs so loudly that the air seems to tremble, and by morning it has somehow expelled the very dust it had just collected. He calls for a repairman, Krong, Wanlop Rungkumjad, who arrives almost instantly and explains that the vacuum is physically fine but haunted by a ghost—one of several spirits tied to the factory that produced the device. The repairman’s tale pulls the man deeper into a world where memories and machines intertwine, and he invites Krong to tell the story of the haunted factory, inviting a stranger into his own haunted life.

Suman, the heir to her late husband’s electronics factory, is haunted by Tok, a resentful spirit who died on the job from congenital heart disease. Tok blames the factory for his death and frequently interrupts work by possessing machinery, his presence anchored in the world only because someone who remembers his life remains. Tok’s ghost flouts hygiene rules, pushing Suman to the brink and contributing to the factory’s decline as she loses her license and the business shuts down.

Meanwhile, March—the younger of Suman’s two sons—mourns Nat and their unborn child, both claimed by a respiratory illness. While investigating Tok’s haunting, March glimpses Nat’s spirit in an inventory warehouse and follows her. Nat possesses a vacuum and seduces March, a revelation that unsettles his family and religious authorities and lands him in hospital. Nat, still bound to the vacuum, travels to the hospital to visit March, and their reunion rekindles a fragile hope. Nat envisions a future they might share, even contemplating using Nat’s frozen eggs to start a family again, a plan that would bind the past to a possible future.

Nat’s presence—and her growing bond with March—draws in Dr. Paul, the Prime Minister [Gandhi Wasuvitchayagit], who intervenes as Nat’s story collides with politics and power. Dr. Paul works to shield Nat and March, pressing for a more ethical handling of her condition and the vacuum’s haunting. Yet conservative in-laws push back, and Buddhist monks attempt to exorcise Nat; Suman, however, confronts them with a stark choice between science, religion, and the ghosts that haunt their lives. Dr. Paul argues for a more nuanced approach, and with his help the charges against Nat are dropped as he repairs the appliance and reframes her role as a “good ghost” who can still influence the world for the better.

As the factory is reopened under the banner of progress, Nat undertakes a radical project: she uses her ability to enter dreams to learn which memories sustain Tok’s haunting in the workers. In this dreamscape, Tok visits the dreams of Pin, a worker, and Suman confronts Pin with an ultimatum: undergo electroshock therapy to forget Tok or lose his job. Tok weaponizes the situation by possessing a refrigerator, creating a dangerous clash that Nat must stop in order to protect Suman and the factory’s fragile revival. Through her intervention, Nat becomes more visible to others, and her status as a benevolent ghost grows.

Dr. Paul eventually orchestrates a more controversial arrangement, inviting Nat and March to his home to celebrate their efforts—an apparent moment of triumph that spirals into a scene with political ghosts from history. These spirits—haunting figures connected to violence in power—press Nat to use her eggs and help them “cleanse” the past. Nat resists, but the promise of clearing bureaucratic obstacles leads her to consent.

The plan succeeds in purging many of the politically inconvenient ghosts, but it strains Nat and March’s relationship. March fears that Nat has changed too much, to the point where she might forget who she used to be. He clings to the past and pursues a study of political violence to keep the memory of the ghosts alive. When Nat becomes pregnant, a difficult betrayal follows: Nat agrees to cooperate with Dr. Paul to secure the future she desires, even as March watches his world crumble around him.

A violent turn comes when a coughing fit at a critical moment topples a bust of Nat, injuring March and leaving him in the hospital with the fear that Nat’s bond to him may vanish forever. Nat begins to fade, and a heavy sense of loss settles over the hospital, leaving Suman alone with the baby she did not expect to raise.

Amid these twin stories—the Ladyboy’s life and Krong’s restless ghost—Krong’s tale takes on new dimension. He reveals that he was murdered by feet encased in concrete and thrown into a lake, his physical existence tethered to the memories of his daughter, which Nat’s therapy has been eroding. The Ladyboy begins to see that Krong is more than a repairman; he is a ghost whose presence lingers in the vacuum that still sits in their shared life. They make love again, and the Ladyboy vows to remember Krong even as the ghost begins to fade.

In a bold, desperate act, the Ladyboy dives into the lake to retrieve the concrete block containing Krong’s feet and hands it to Dr. Paul. Reconstituted by this act, Krong and a chorus of vengeful spirits surge into Dr. Paul’s home, enacting a final reckoning that leaves him, his family, and his associates dead in the wake of their haunting.

This story-within-a-story unfolds through a tapestry of memory, loss, and the uneasy alliance between the living and the dead. It is a meditation on how progress can be a double-edged blade—how a city’s renewal can restore some lives while unearthing others, how love can endure even as it shifts shape, and how the line between healer and exploiter, guardian and aggressor, can blur when ghosts choose to intervene in the world of the living.