A construction worker becomes an actor in a theatre production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in this moving and sincere film about how art can help us process grief and cope with daily strife, played by a real-life family of acting professionals who give such naturalistic performances.
Review #2,851
Dir. Alex Thompson & Kelly O’Sullivan
2024 | USA | Drama | 115 min | 1.66:1 | English
NC16 (passed clean) for language
Cast: Keith Kupferer, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, Tara Mallen, Dolly de Leon, Hanna Dworkin
Plot: When a construction worker unexpectedly joins a local theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet alongside his estranged teenage daughter, the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life.
Awards: Official Selection (Sundance)
International Sales: Visit Films (SG: Anticipate Pictures)
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Family Crisis; Grief; Acting
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Slightly Mainstream
Viewed: The Projector Golden Mile
Spoilers: No
Kelly O’Sullivan who starred in Alex Thompson’s debut feature Saint Frances (2019), now co-directs with him in this new Sundance offering that is bound to move you with its sheer sincerity. If you are in need of a weepie, this will be up your alley.
Dan is in construction doing road works but one day finds himself being asked to stand in for a missing actor in an amateur local theatre group’s rehearsal of ‘Romeo and Juliet’.
Without any acting skills whatsoever, he somehow becomes attracted to the opportunity of ‘being’ another person, away from the daily strife of family that he finds difficulty communicating with.
“I think it’s really great that you found a place where you feel welcome.”
What is remarkable is that Dan, his sometimes overbearing wife Sharon, and ultra-rebellious daughter Daisy, are all played by a real-life family of acting professionals, adding another meta-layer of what it means to perform as—and for—oneself and others.
Ghostlight is also about how the stories that have been told for centuries can be a poignant reflection of real life. Dealing with grief is one of the film’s key themes, and so is the need to talk about it as a family.
With the natural performances on display, including an engaging turn by Dolly De Leon (who enjoyed some degree of popularity with 2022’s Triangle of Sadness) as one of the theatre group’s key members, Ghostlight shows us how art, in this case as a small community effort, can transform lives, not through grandiose gestures of mythic transcendence (ala Shakespeare), but small, quiet acts of wholehearted recognition of one another’s feelings.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 
[…] are more complex ideas of ‘identity’ and ‘role-playing’ swirling around here than in, say, Ghostlight (2024), which although an entirely different film, has theatre and acting as a common […]
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