Ghostlight - Movie Review

Critics Score - 9 of 10

General Audience Score - 6 of 10

So in most places growing up, there are usually books that are required reading in school. Here in the U.S. you’d find books like Catcher In The Rye, Of Mice And Men, The Great Gatsby as well as books by Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens and such among those reading assignments. One name that would almost certainly make every English teachers assigned curriculum of authors would be William Shakespeare, with his popular tale of Romeo And Juliet being about his most famous play. Well, the new IFC film Ghostlight released over this summer weaves the Romeo And Juliet narrative into its plot in a very creative and ultimately heartbreaking way. I won’t stray into spoilers other than to say that this family drama is as touching and tear jerking as they come, without steering into the melodrama of this small family’s situation. A father and mother of a troubled teenage daughter are struggling to find ways to connect with her when the father is suddenly pulled into a local theatre group who’s production of Romeo And Juliet is getting underway. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t cried this much at a movie since the Lukas Dhont film Close from a couple years ago. The performances are solid and the final act of this film is absolutely devastating in how it unveils a major plot point. We watch these characters in scene after scene of complete torment as they finally begin to process buried emotions. This is no Hallmark movie, but it may be considered in the same vein. So bring your Kleenex along. Although this film has been under the radar, it’s a movie I want to shine a light on because Ghostlight isn’t just a sad movie, it’s a great one. One of the best I’ve seen all year.

SYNOPSIS - We see a screen of black as we hear sounds of an orchestra warming up and preparing to perform, we see a curtain open revealing . . a backyard? The camera shows us the face of Dan (Keith Kupferer) as he stares out from inside his bedroom in the early morning hours, he glances down contemplatively, something is weighing on his mind. We hear but do not see his wife Sharon (Tara Mallen) ask him “Is it morning?”. “No, keep sleeping”, he replies and quietly leaves the room. Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin’ from the Oklahoma! soundtrack begins to play as we get a morning montage of Dan driving his truck into work, then views of the small costal town they live in, finally Dan working at his road construction job. He uses a jackhammer to break up the asphalt and then slowing down and waving traffic by when he momentarily spaces out and a car races by, narrowly missing him and causing him to jump back in fear. While he takes lunch and eats a sandwich, he observes a small group of five or six people, including Rita (Dolly De Leon), as they linger around outside an old town theatre that’s now closed. His phone rings and after telling a coworker he’s gotta go take care of something, we transport to a principal’s office in his teenage daughter Daisy’s (Katherine Mallen Kupferer) school. The two parents sit on either side of their daughter as the principal explains that there was an incident, one of the teachers alleges that Daisy pushed her. Indignant at the accusations, Daisy pleads her case before getting frustrated and storming out followed by her mom. Because physical altercations are handled severely and kids that lay their hands on staff are subject to being expelled, Dan stays behind to plead for his daughter to be allowed to stay in school.

The principal says that if the teacher is agreeable, maybe they can reduce the sentence to two weeks of suspension if they agree to get Daisy into some therapy sessions, to which he agrees. Outside the school Dan and Sharon discuss what to do with Daisy, who wanders out into the street and screams at a passing vehicle. Later on while Dan is working, Rita, one of the people hanging outside the old theatre, comes over to complain about the amount of noise the road workers are making. We skip forward to that evening where Sharon and Dan ask Daisy if she’s going to do a school play again this year, apparently she’s a regular, but she says no, “Cause it’s f***ing stupid”. Sharon and Dan aren’t impressed with her language. But later the two discuss an upcoming lawsuit that they’ll be meeting with their lawyers about and whether they want to go through with it. We start getting clues that there’s a storm-a-brewing, something significant has impacted this family recently and we’re progressively given more details about it through the first two acts. On that note I will say no more. But after an incident at work where Dan assaults a man driving by, Rita takes him and brings him to the closed theatre and he sits in on a rehearsal that she and seven or eight other theatre enthusiasts are working on. He sits quietly and watches the group, looking very out of place, by all accounts this is very much not his jam. Rita tells him there’s no obligation for him to stay, yet she slowly coerces him into returning, doing their breathing and speaking exercises, and eventually taking a role in their little production of Romeo And Juliet. But as the production ramps up, Dan is embarrassed about his newfound interest and must lie to his wife and daughter to cover up the time spent with this group. But eventually we come to understand what this family trio has been grappling with. As we watch them processing and working through the turmoil, individually and as a family, up to Dan’s stage debut finale, the emotions run high and leave a wide wake of gut wrenching scenes that leave you shaken to your core.

Assessing this film from a technical level isn’t overly complex, the narrative is straightforward, its story is well crafted as it is told by an actress from Cha Cha Real Smooth, Kelly O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan, behind the helm of this film as a writer, director and producer, is showcasing her clear knack for making high caliber films. The clever way the film’s script weaves the Shakespeare story into the narrative and reveals to us the ghost that haunts this family’s past is both masterful and emotionally crushing. This film’s themes of grief, loneliness, solitude, emotional repression, and a couple others I cannot speak of here without spoiling the final act, are all dealt with in such a tender and sympathetic way. For a family drama where we’re centered on covering the events surrounding mainly three individuals, at just under two hours Ghostlight is very well paced. We’re given enough time with these individuals to understand them, their family dynamics and we’re allowed to invest in them the perfect amount without the film slowing down and wearing out it’s welcome. These performers are mostly unknowns, they’ve each been in a number of films and had small roles, but never anything major. As the poster suggests, the father and daughter combo of Keith Kupferer and what is his real life daughter Katherine, I mean, they are absolutely mesmerizing together and steal the show. Even though it’s mostly theirs to begin with, they are the characters we spend most of our time with, but the connection they have bleeds through the screen and pulls without mercy on your heartstrings. Tara Mallen, Keith’s real life wife and Katherine’s mother, completes this real and onscreen family and answers the question of why these family dynamics feel so realistic. Along with the Triangle Of Sadness breakout star Dolly De Leon, these actors combine to make this a surprisingly incredible ensemble cast, pound for pound. This is one of the most powerfully told yet simplistically beautiful stories I’ve seen in quite a while. All that being said, this isn’t a film you’ll want to let pass you by, despite the fact that most audiences have never even heard it of it before.

SUMMARY - While this movie won’t be as eagerly embraced by the thrill seeking, adrenaline loving, mile a minute portion of the general audience crowd, critics, cinephiles and anyone who can enjoy a deeper character study will find a lot to love here. So buckle up for the saddest film of 2024 without much doubt, because Ghostlight holds a power that might just haunt you long after the credits roll.