Ghostlight

Ghostlight (Kelly O'Sullivan, Alex Thompson, 2024) Last Summer when Ghostlight opened I was "doing other things" but I'd heard about it from what seemed like every program on NPR doing a feature-story or interview about it. It had a compelling story and an interesting "hook"—the three actors playing a family in the film are an actual nuclear family.

That family is starting to become fissionable. A past family crisis has been buried by fiat and the after-shocks are starting to cause considerable damage. Daughter Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer) is "acting up" at school and father Dan (Keith Kupferer) called from his work at a street-construction site for a parent-principal conference along with his wife Sharon (Tara Mallen), where things only escalate and Daisy gets suspended. This is just one more complication for a family that is barely holding things together, what with that previous tragedy and the pressures of a wrongful death lawsuit the family has brought against the family of their late son's girlfriend.

That, and things aren't going so well at the job; he's berated by a complete stranger (Dolly De Leon) for all the noise that's disrupting the rehearsals of a small theater-group next to where he's jack-hammering. Holding everything in, one day he just snaps at a motorist who snaps his picture and he gets reported to his boss. He gets put on leave. That earlier complaining stranger asks if he wants to join the theater-group. "You looked like you needed the chance to be someone else for awhile" is the reason for her invitation.

Reluctantly, he does, even though it all looks a bit "woo-woo" to him. Everything is a little too "touchy-feely" and the actors are all into themselves. But, the breathing exercises are helpful, the camaraderie is pleasant, and the rehearsal room is a safe place, away from the "thousand natural shocks" that he's been contending with, outside of it. Plus, it gives him a place to go during the day without having to explain that he's been fired to his family. It never occurs to him that it's comforting because he's running away from the matters-at-hand.

But...maybe he feels he isn't. "The play's the thing", you see. It's "The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet"—picked because that stranger from earlier, Rita, has always wanted to play Juliet...but, she's older now, and tiny...and Asian...and...she's never been given the chance. Because...all of that. This is her dream. And that dream gives all the actors a chance to think outside of the opportunities they've lost. To dream a little bit. to have the chance to grow a little bit beyond themselves.

But, Dan keeps getting stuck on the play. He fights it. He fights the idea of it...right down to its core. When pressed, he finally opens up. His son committed suicide and in a pact with his girlfriend, decided to take their own lives because she was moving...and Dan wouldn't let him move with her. He died. She lived. Hence, the lawsuit. Dan, in talking out his trouble dealing with the play, reveals things he's never revealed, lets things out that he's kept stoppered in, and the troupe in empathy and solidarity embrace him. It helps with the play. It hurts with everything else. But, the show must go on.

There's a lot to like about Ghostlight. The acting, in particular (and the film won awards for Best Actor for Kupferer and Best Director at the Seattle International Film Festival—it was nominated for Best Film and Katherine Mallen Kupferer was nominated for Best Actress—and the film was nominated for all sorts of awards throughout the festival circuit) and if there was any justice in the world Kupferer should be competing for the roles Jeff Daniels is regularly hired for now. He has the Daniels vibe with just a touch of George C. Scott's quality of a coiled fuse. He has one scene—his deposition monologue—that runs the gamut of emotions, and when he erupts in the middle of it, it sets you back on your heels. It's so good that I someday want to do a Sunday Scene of it (even though it'd be a nightmare to put together). He's that good.

I just wish it was in a better movie. And it's not that the movie is bad (it isn't), it's just that it's that most damning of words..."precious". Look, I understand the concept of theater being "therapy." I really do. But, it's a little too much for the screenplay to insist that performing in a play can solve the issues of revengeful grief. Especially as the movie suggests it can happen while ignoring the pressures (many of them psychological) of performance...even for a trained actor. It involves memorization, and concentration, and, with Shakespeare, it involves dealing with unfamiliar language and archaic references, which would be anxiety-inducing for anyone, let alone for a working-class guy off the streets, with no acting experience, on top of suppressed emotions, and who isn't even familiar with the play.

And, more importantly, "the play's the thing." Why does it have to be that play? Using "The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet" as the vehicle for catharsis for this situation is so "on the nose", it's like hitting the nail with a sledge-hammer. It's like Lincoln being shot during a performance of "Julius Caesar." Somewhere in the process of conceiving this project, someone had to say "Oh, that's perfect."  But with, with all the concessions that were made in the fleshing out of the screenplay, nobody stopped to think that maybe it was a little too perfect. That it beggars the imagination. That even Shakespeare would have put down his quill and said (in Elizabethan terms, of course) "Well, maybe that's going a bit too far." 

Still, it's well played. And that's the thing.