Ghostlight review: Community-minded drama is a small, bespoke gem

Hollywood studios have, over the last quarter-century, uncannily missed no opportunity to undercut the value proposition of their product. But under-discussed among the myriad reasons for cinema’s increasingly slack grasp on our collective culture is a very simple and straightforward one: Much of the most popular American cinema is now so baroque as to be unrecognizable.

Genre playgrounds are fantastic and especially alluring gateways of filmic enticement for younger audiences. And they can continue to hold rich rewards for an entire lifetime. But what of movies that reflect real-world travails, or try to turn a mirror back on modern society, maturing along with viewers and subtly reminding us we’re not alone? Largely gone (or banished to streaming) are the sort of “meat-and-potatoes” contemporary films which for decades populated multiplexes as part of the cinematic ecosystem.

A pleasant surprise, then, that one of the undisputed highlights of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival was a simple, throwback, redemptive story about the personal roads of grief we all must travel. Co-directed by Alex Thompson and screenwriter Kelly O’Sullivan, Ghostlight counts among its stars a real-life married couple and their daughter, feeding its sense of authenticity. The result is a small, bespoke gem about finding constructive channels for deep and uncomfortable feelings.

In an Illinois suburb, construction worker Dan (Keith Kupferer) is gripped by an emotional constipation that’s left him increasingly adrift from his wife Sharon (Tara Mallen) and their teenage daughter Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), who’s facing a threat of school expulsion for her latest incident of rebellious acting out.

Bits and pieces of the reason for this strife are parceled out, as the family takes an awkward meeting to discuss practicing for a deposition connected to a looming lawsuit. Daisy is in therapy for anger management and other issues, but Dan, in the classic mold of a stoic male, resists. When Dan snaps at work, though, this fleeting moment of public rage catches the attention of actress Rita (Dolly De Leon), who sports Adidas Sambas and a “Straight Outta Cookies” T-shirt, with a spunky attitude to match.

Sensing something, Rita pulls Dan into a table read and pitches him on joining her barebones community theater production of Romeo & Juliet, despite his unfamiliarity with the source text. Dan is outright dismissive at first, then skeptical, but he finds himself drawn back to the group’s rehearsals—a development which he keeps secret from his wife and daughter.

As the movie unspools, the unspecified trauma hanging over the family—and the complicated, sometimes at-odds feelings the three of them have—comes into sharper focus. This family drama and healing then plays out against the backdrop of several twists and turns leading up to the play’s opening night.

On a certain level, it’s true that the logline of Ghostlight reads like an overly precious and contrived tale of code-cracked repression, one of two main types of self-consciously independent productions that have plagued American film festivals over the past 15 years. But any prejudiced sense of dismissal or even pause one might have quickly melts away.

Co-directors O’Sullivan and Thompson (whose previous collaboration Saint Frances picked up two prizes, including the Audience Award, at its South by Southwest debut in 2019), capably oversee a modest and straightforward technical package that yields unfussy charms. The film’s sharp eye for character detail and naturalistic blend of low-key humor and pathos, nicely captured in wide frames by cinematographer Luke Dyra, overcome its slightly heightened emotional pitch and innate eagerness to please.

It’s difficult to say enough positive things about the work of the Kupferers and Mallens. It’s true that the fact they’re a real family undoubtedly assists in their ability to convey complicated family dynamics, their genuine connection giving them a useful shorthand. But they are also intuitive and gifted performers in their own ways, and each wholly dialed in with the tone and intent of their directors.

Not merely content to trade in familiar notes of lived-in blue-collar gruffness, Kupferer brings a welcome multi-dimensionality to Dan. This is characterized by a full menu of ambivalence and contradictions as he fumbles his way into the world of acting, compelled in a way he can’t quite articulate to find a grander meaning that works for him.

Mallen Kupferer, meanwhile, communicates the feeling that her occasionally uncorked firehose of teenage anger is at least partly performative; she knows what she’s doing, and is at times just seeking a (new, different) reaction from her parents. A game assortment of Chicago-based repertory players also rounds out the supporting cast, giving them a depth not always on the page.

At its most basic, Ghostlight is a film about grief and the utility of community in processing it, and if that seems obvious, it’s still fairly piercing as rendered here. O’Sullivan’s script connects certain scenes from William Shakespeare’s timeless romantic tragedy to some of the misfortune and swallowed sentiments in Dan, Daisy, and Sharon’s lives. It builds in natural, well-calibrated ways to a genuine catharsis.

But Ghostlight is also, more broadly, about the timeless ability of art to tether and connect us, and why we need it. For film enthusiasts, that message is likely catnip. What further elevates the movie, though, is its sharply drawn secondary thesis, and thrumming emotional bass line: That there is, at various times in life, inordinate value in finding not just other relationships but also a deeper kinship outside of blood relations. In a world increasingly marked by tribalistic identification and a considerably megaphoned fear and belittling of “others” by powerful political and online voices, this very simple idea is, in its own way, quietly radical.

Finding “one’s people” is valuable, no doubt. But even more essential is the first step, something with which sadly a lot of people seem to struggle: there is plenty to love about and learn from individuals whose experiences and deeper interests don’t immediately seem to overlap with our own.

Ghostlight postulates this as part of a package that tells a slightly more familiar story of anguish and recovery. As such, while it connects as authentic and heartfelt, there’s also a sneaky profundity to match. Experiencing that in a theater alongside strangers is a very good thing.