“Ghostlight” (2024) focuses on a Chicago family, the Muellers, who is going through a rough time. Dodging reckless drivers and an angry pedestrian, Rita (Dolly De Leon), father, Dan (Keith Kupferer), is distracted at his construction job and feeling the strain on their finances. Daughter Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer) is acting out at an expensive school and in danger of expulsion unless she gets therapy. Mom, Sharon (Tara Mallen), a drama teacher, is functioning, but has her hands full with an uncommunicative husband and a rebellious daughter. Noticing that Dan may need an emotional outlet, Rita recruits Dan to join a local theater production of “Romeo and Juliet,” which provides an outlet for Dan to get in touch with his feelings and act as a gateway for the entire family to heal.
Kupferer is convincing as the gentle giant who vacillates between explosion and reticence, which makes him see more related to Daisy than any physical resemblance. Despite obviously shirking his duties, Dan never alienates his audience and is relatable, which means Kupferer did a great job. When he begins to open up and giggle as if he is back in school, it is a relief. When he remembers his trouble, he looks like a ton of bricks hit him so when the family drama gets revealed, it gives him less to do whereas the mystery keeps the story more engaged in his performance. Mallen exudes an Ann Dowd gravitas but is never given enough to do other than be supportive. Sharon gets the short end of the stick with barely a storyline except for her family members to stress her out. Sharon is a bit of a thankless role, but she does have undeniable chemistry with her husband, which is good news for them—just ask Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. It is unfortunate that writer and codirector Kelly O’Sullivan and codirector Alex Thompson did not give the real-life couple more of a chance to work together and explore their on-screen relationship. Mallen Kupferer may remind some of a young Megan Follows from “Anne of Green Gables” (1985), and a casting director cast her as Jo from “Little Women.” Here she plays the trope of the precocious teen who functions as a child who exists to make her father grow as a person. Parentification alert!
After her Golden Globe nominated performance in “Triangle of Sadness” (2022), it should be no surprise that De Leon elevates her character, the most experienced actor in the theater, a ball busting character later turned friend. It is a glorified Magical Coloured Person role disguised with smoking, brashness and shouting to disguise her random decision to reach out to the most volatile person who crosses her path, which later extends to Daisy and the rest of the family. Rita is the heart of “Ghostlight,” and De Leon is a scene stealer. As her character gets less screen time proportionate to the family healing, it slows the narrative’s momentum.
“Ghostlight” feels contrived. While it is really a sweet scene as Daisy shows scenes from Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” (1996) to Dan because they light up and forget their preassigned roles, it strains disbelief that just because he is a blue-collar worker, Dan would not know the general story arc of Shakespeare’s tragedy, which will retroactively fit too neatly with the family’s backstory once it is revealed. Not understand the dated language and feeling awkward, sure, but not knowing it when he is married to a professional theater geek, has a theater nerd daughter and attends all her plays? Absolutely not. His ignorance retroactively explains why he would participate in material filled with triggers.
The narrative has a Seventies sitcomesque sense of humor. There is a brief misunderstanding that Dan is cheating when he sneaks off to hang out with the theater troupe, and the humor fails to harmonize with the rest of the story thus feeling contrived. It would be better if he had fought an actual attraction to Rita, whom Dan also had chemistry with, or the suspicion was not leveraged as an entry point for the family to become a part of his private, creative world. Other than Rita, the actors in the troupe are not individuated and act as if they exist to help Dan, including Rita, except for brief flashes of vanity. The construction stops disrupting their rehearsals the moment that Dan joins.
“Ghostlight” lives and dies on the grittiness of the family’s grief but fails to keep the stakes high as a family on the precipice of falling apart financially, psychologically and literally. Law enforcement is nowhere to be seen, and there are no legal consequences for anyone committing battery and assault. The use of a legal proceeding to literally litigate the family’s grievances is a conceit that never works as well as therapy and acting as a forum to express bottled up emotions. Dan is worried about money, but those concerns evaporate after a huge, disastrous turning point at work. In any other home, as opposed to an affair, that kind of secret could end in divorce. Daisy curses and screams, but otherwise she yearns to spend more time with her family than her friends, which seems convenient. She is a safe disruptive presence. In the end, she unofficially acts as her dad’s counselor coaching him in the arts and emotions.
There was a time when there were few television channels so there were movies made exclusively to air on television on a Sunday night, and they were amazing. If it was not for the profanity, “Ghostlight” would fit that bill. The onscreen family is related off-screen so while the story is fictional, it likely reflects the organic energy of the family and its individual members becoming better through art. As Dan is forced to confront his suppressed trauma through art, it is cathartic and feels authentic. While it never surprises in a way that “Sing Sing” (2024) with its mix of fictional and fictionalized characters, it is a minor work that evokes the same potential of ordinary people transcending their psychological chains to become greater than and understand themselves.
The most unexpected scene is between Dan and Christine (Lia Cubilete), who is a person often discussed in “Ghostlight,” but never onscreen until close to the final act. Kupferer and Cubilete’s performance anchors the story. Dan is clearly reminded that there is a real person, a child, behind this mythical person that looms large in the Mueller family’s psyche, just as the adults are less mature than they pretend to be, but finally have to reckon with in the face of tragedy. The theme of adults playing teenagers is an underdeveloped theme, which is probably because De Leon’s performance makes it difficult to stay focused on the family. With a lesser actor, it would be less intriguing to explore the idea that everyone in the troupe gets to be whom they dreamed of playing at the beginning of their acting journey and the heartbreak along the way. In the wrong hands, “Ghostlight” could have been insulting to older people or too saccharine like “Poms” (2019). It is very difficult for professional actors to play a character who is in turn acting as an amateur, and they do seem inexperienced and are convincing in a way that explains why their characters have not made it.
“Ghostlight” was a well-regarded indie fave of 2024, and some fans are decrying it lacking the same resources and adulation as “Deadpool & Wolverine” (2024), particularly from Taylor Swift. This family drama was never meant to appeal to the same audience and would wilt under those moviegoers’ gaze. It is a twenty-first century movie with a twentieth century heart. A better comparison would be with “The Exorcism” (2024), a film about an actor grappling with his demons literally and figuratively except acting destroys him, and his daughter fights to save him. For people who watched the Russell Crowe film and thought it would make a better drama than a horror film, “Ghostlight” is a better character study that also reflects on the power of art to change lives as a possible alternative to therapy.
