Ghostlight

I was invited to an industry screening, but recommend paying your way in to see this gem. It opened in June with very little buzz, but apparently is going wider now. Writer Kelly O'Sullivan directed it with her partner Alex Thompson. I missed their first film, the much lauded Saint Frances.

The Mueller family uses a community theater production of "Romeo and Juliet" as a cathartic vessel to soothe the pain of their son's suicide. The mysterious circumstances surrounding his death involve a lawsuit and a pivotal deposition. The writer skillfully withheld the shocking details until very late, as most storytelling is about secrets. Father Dan (Kieth Kupferer) is a construction worker in the Chicago area. His relationship with his wife Sharon (Tara Mallen) is worsening by the day. Their fifteen year old daughter Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer) had a fight at school, is suspended and sees a mandated therapist at $150 an hour. Dan had a fight at work with a motorist and almost had to take a mandatory leave. Waitress Rita (Dolly De Leon) saw this and, out of both pity and necessity, asked him to join her theater production, meeting nights and weekends because everyone has jobs. Dan is of course a lousy actor. But after the original Romeo quits, Rita talks him into the role opposite her Juliet. It's a much more age congruent match. They were planning to stage their sole performance in the cramped rehearsal space in the heart of town. But Sharon is a schoolteacher and persuades the powers that be to gift them the gym.

It's such a terrific feel good movie, with a fair amount of angst and bitterness swirled in. Dan, Sharon and Daisy are a family in real life. This really cemented their performances beyond what a normal cast would achieve. Kupferer has a ton of theater experience, which he employs to great effect. Dolly De Leon is fantastic as Rita. She continues to produce excellent work after her Triangle of Sadness breakthrough and Between the Temples. The physical disparity between the hulking Romeo and petite Juliet is a source of easy laughs, but that all fades once they are in character. It's always a joy to see theater and film converge, as in Vanya on 42nd Street or Birdman. A raft of rave film festival reviews are entirely accurate.

A majestic movie, it makes you cry, definitely one of the most underrated of the whole year 2024x amazing performance and history, i watched this thank to the good Youtuber and ex honest trailer producer Dan, he is a very good critics and he very liked this movie so i watched and its pretty good to ve honest and that's always good ok, overall this is just a fantastic movie to watch with your family to cry and confess things that need to be say, this movie will change your life and make you a better person ok, overall it's fantastic and oscar worthy ok, this is a masterpiece An 8/10 masterpiece for me.

"Island of misfit toys" Rita (Dolly De Leon)

Rita aptly describes her ramshackle community-theater group and unknowingly describes the tough family at the heart of the dramedy film Ghostlight. Having survived an unbearable tragedy, construction worker dad, Dan (Keith Kupferer), secretly joins the group to play Romeo, in an adaptation of the Bard's colossal tragedy that mirrors the challenges of the film's nuclear family.

Writer, director Kelly O'Sullivan (along with co-director Alex Thompson) shows the therapeutic value of theater, just as director Greg Kwedar did for Sing Sing, in which prisoners found redemption from theater productions. The family finds out about Dan's secret life, eventually healing because of it.

The film's actual acting family of Keith, outspoken teen Daisy played by his daughter Katherine Mallen Kupferer), and mother Sharon played by wife/mother Tara Mallen lends a spirit to the film whereby each gently-revealed setback can't destroy the love they feel for each other on stage and real life. Oscar nominations should follow that real family.

Henry Miller would approve the admixture of love, humor, and tragedy is one of the two best movies of the year. To see it at holiday time is to remind us the salutary effect of quality family drama in film, theater, and life itself. Streaming on Prime.

I used to be embarrassed to cry in movies and would try as hard as I could to keep it in. But that would always leave me feeling afterwards like I had a head cold, plus now I'm older and I don't give a hoot what people think. So now I let my freak flag fly and just openly weep in a movie theater if the mood strikes me. I've also found since I had children of my own that more things make me emotional than previously.

So I was an absolutely snotty, dripping mess at multiple times throughout this movie. I'm a sucker anyway for stories about people who see other people at their worst moments and respond with kindness and understanding rather than harsh judgement, and this is that kind of story. It's also about the power of art to help us work through our emotions, make sense of the world, find common ground with others, broaden our perspectives, all the things the world feels really in need of right now but yet seems determined not to do.

Is "Ghostlight" manipulative? Probably. Does it hold up to scrutiny afterwards? I'm not sure, possibly not. But I don't care because I didn't scrutinize this movie afterwards. I just let myself feel it, and that's what I want to take away with me.

Grade: A.

A blue collar construction worker in Chicago with a volatile temper and a dysfunctional family is asked to fill in when a tiny community theater attempts to stage Romeo and Juliet.

A touching, complicated movie about family and art and fathers and children. One of the best movies of 2024.

And, my favorite movie genre. How art is made:

'Topsy-Turvy' 'Day for Night' 'Tropic Thunder' 'Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story'

Ultimately, indeed, The play goes on.

A great local Chicago actor stars in the movie, and slowly, grudgingly, as Romeo: Keith Kupferer.

What a great face. What a great presence. Costarring his daughter.

When the play within the movie begins, the curtain opens, and these familiar words heard by audiences for 497 years are spoken:

'Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge, break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.'

A fantastic movie that I recommend you see.