Director: Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson

Writer: Kelly O'Sullivan

Stars: Keith Kupferer, Dolly de Leon, Katherine May Kupferer and Tara Mallen

Running Time: 115 minutes

Please note there may be spoilers below

In a time of hopelessness, a film providing hope proves very important indeed. Ghostlight is over-flowing with an abundance of human struggle, but also with a gracious amount of much needed optimism. Scene-by-scene we’re treated to the type of grounded drama that proves instantly relatable, completely believable, and functions perfectly as a conduit into the complex trauma of a struggling working-class family, with a particular focus on the depression purveying the burnt-out reticent male psyche. When Roger Ebert spoke about movies being machines for empathy, Ghostlight was what he was talking about.

I gave my heart over to Ghostlight early. Within the first few scenes, the directing duo Alex Thompson and Kelly O'Sullivan give you permission to trust them. They delicately reveal the lives of the Mueller family, all three them painted by the grief of family death. We inhabit the world of father Dan, a listless middle aged construction worker caught in a cycle of functioning depression. He spends his days staring into empty space as the noise from jackhammers reverberates down the street. He attends disciplinary meetings at his daughter Daisy’s school. His wife Sharon, the incredible Tara Mallen, is the rock of the family, holding back her own grief as she battles to keep her crumbling household together.

The familial problems never decline to soap opera – teenage Daisy is believably defiant against her models of authority, firing out ironic and twisted rhetoric when she’s challenged by her principal. Dan and Sharon try their best. Exhausted and flatted by the weight of the world, they watch and reprimand Daisy for stopping a car in the street and screaming herself into a self-destructive giggle. For Dan, he is a motor running on fumes. Emotionally closed, the stoic, masculine element of him represses his feelings in times of pain. His coping mechanism is to tell everyone he doesn’t need help, he’s just fine, trapping him in a dark room of his own creation.

Part of Ghostlight’s beauty is its joy of community. As Dan reaches an emotional low point, a performing arts opportunity presents itself. A small community theater across the street of his construction site teases him with an invitation. It’s organizer, the spiky and delightful Rita (Dolly de Leon), sees immediately in Dan his need to be another person, to pretend he’s not a mess. After some cursory glances through the window, Dan joins this band of misfit actors in their production of Romeo and Juliet, a tragedy that fittingly reflects the tragedy in Dan’s own family. By the time the rehearsals start, the film gives us an adoringly eccentric depiction of the behind-the-curtain hi-jinks of an amateur theater group.

They can’t afford an intimacy coordinator, so their director prints some tips from the internet and coaches her middle-aged actors through the motions of falling in love like impulsive teenagers. It’s all so lovingly painted with the warmest form of realism. So often the film threatens to turn the characteristics of this acting troupe into caricature, to turn the overlapping themes of tragic youth into contrivance, but like so many elements of Ghostlight, it’s too intelligently written to fall victim to any of these expected weaknesses. Instead, Dan’s journey is not one of suddenly becoming a great actor, or suddenly having his life elevate to a new level of happiness; this journey is one about learning to accept and mourn, all expressed through the heartfelt human connection of shared interests.

Of course, rehearsing a play is one thing, but performing it is another. As this troupe of ragged actors take to their lately booked stage for their first, and only, performance of Shakespeare’s tragedy, I was riveted by every tiny moment. The magic is how much love you feel for each attempt at sincere greatness in the face of all doubt. As Romeo and Juliet climaxes and the humble talent trods the boards, the tragedy of the Mueller family and Dan’s emotional pain is allowed to be felt. This isn’t a film about solving problems as it is about feeling problems, each scene full of delicate and kind touches, not a single moment of unearned exuberance. It comes so close to sentimentality, but the grounded darkness of this story always manages to balance out the equation. Ghostlight is a film continually risking everything, each beat pushing against the edges of our emotional threshold, but never straying too far, always respecting our intellect. It’s a reminder that we’re stronger together than apart.