The montage that opens the American independent drama “Ghostlight” is a familiar one. We follow Dan Mueller (Keith Kupferer), a serious and burly older man, waking up and preparing for work. He is on his way to his construction job, in the early hours of the morning, and every fibre of his face and body suggest a world-weariness that we will soon come to understand. The visual story here is familiar enough, except the music that plays over it seems jarring. Dan’s stolid morning routine is countered with the mellifluous voice of a male tenor singing the opening bars of “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical “Oklahoma!”.
The yearning earnestness of the singer, contrasted with Dan’s agitation, are the first signs that “Ghostlight” is interested in elements of dissonance. The genre, too, feels ironic. Dan’s serious and imposing masculine countenance in contrast to the mid-century platonic ideal of musical theatre comedy feels like the set-up for a joke that does not quite come. These ostensible dissonances will become central to “Ghostlight” soon enough, part of a series of juxtapositions that it will cleverly, and thoughtfully, distill over the two hours that follow. Writer Kelly O’Sullivan, who co-directs the film with Alex Thompson, is weaving subtext into irony into juxtaposition and by the end of “Ghostlight” its seemingly dissonant parts coalesce to form a film of sharp tenderness, sincerity and waves of catharsis.
Much of the magic is situated in O’Sullivan’s screenplay. It is an empathetic piece of writing that weaves a series of escalating personal and familial tensions from its opening scene. It stacks crisis upon crisis, gently nudging the characters and audience to emotional upheavals that begin to unravel in glorious ways by the time it begins to reveal the things we suspect it’s withholding from us. As gently as the drama unfolds, “Ghostlight” immediately thrusts us into its world of familial crises. Not even two minutes into the film, Dan receives a call at work about an incident with his daughter Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer) at school. Daisy has had an altercation with a teacher, the latest in a series of rebellious teenage acts that the film does not explain at first, and that Dan and his wife Sharon (Tara Mallen) seem unable to handle.
Daisy isn’t the only one struggling to handle her emotions. When a bad decision at work leaves Dan’s employment compromised, a chance meeting with an amateur theatre group – led by the acerbic and charming Rita (Dolly de Leon) finds him observing a troupe of mostly elderly amateurs putting on a production of “Romeo and Juliet”. It’s the hook that’s the most marketable aspect of the film – a group of nonprofessional persons put on “Romeo and Juliet”, filled with hijinks and nontraditional casting. But, like many things in “Ghostlight”, the easy set-up does not line up with the thoughtful nuances of the follow-through. O’Sullivan’s script is misdirecting us. At first glance, she plays into the inherent amusement of the troupe’s chaos, only peeling back layer upon layer until the illusion of theatre as falsity disappears and you are immersed in the kernel of truth at its centre. She does the same thing with the parallel family tragedy that finds Dan taking emotional catharsis in the play.
When the revelation of what the central rupture is in the family comes, it’s done with such gentleness that I held a gasp at the way it becomes woven into the fabric of the story. O’Sullivan is dropping several hints of things amiss that will build to exposing the aching pain at the family’s centre, and although it doesn’t function as a spoiler whose knowledge would disrupt the film, I opt not to include it here just to allow audiences the thrill of experiencing how a well modulated screenplay builds to a heartrending emotional reveal with clarity and generosity. And, those two words may as well describe a lot of the escalating drama of “Ghostlight”. In many ways this film could be a simple three-hander, a tale of three family members grieving a loss. Except, “Ghostlight” keeps on widening its lens. Minor characters waltz on screen for a moment, and are offered the profundity you would expect to go to a primary character. The camera lingers on someone who might be on the periphery, allowing them a dignity that feels essential to the emotional acuity at work here.
I’ll say this, the thing that is weighing the Mueller family down is a weight that can break any family – even the nicest ones and it’s critical that even in that first third where little in their dynamic is easy or sanguine that the performers, and the filmmakers carve out a believable and gentle chemistry that immediately inspire audiences to commit to nuances of the drama. It helps that the Mueller family is played by a real one – Mallen and Kupferer are a married couple, and Katherine is their daughter. The directing duo are also married. It’s information that makes the examination of family so much more aching when “Ghostlight” gets on its way. This is performance. But beneath the performance there is truth. The two coexist in the film, as they do in the best of theatre. The aesthetic diffidence of “Ghostlight” does not compromise the emotional latitude and intelligence of the film.
One of its most intelligent skills is the way that “Ghostlight” almost inexplicably manages to make one of the most referenced, performed, and known plays of the last 500 years feel fresh, new, and without guile. It’s easy to forget that “Romeo and Juliet” is one of the finest plays in the English Language, and that the double-suicide of its central couple are heart-rending to consider. In a late scene, Dan struggles to make sense of the play, insisting that the actions of the teenagers is not just insensible but unrealistic. Who would do such a thing? The journey he goes on to find the meaning and clarity in the action is one that O’Sullivan insists the audience takes with him. As Dan becomes an unwitting avatar for the power of theatre, he takes on a kind of audience surrogate. As his relationship with the play, and theatre changes, “Ghostlight” seems to be arguing – through him – for the truth in the performance of the theatrical world. By the climactic performance of the play at the end, the tear-stained faces in the audience are likely to mirror those of the audience watching the movie.
At every moment, the filmic sensibilities blend with its theatrical ones – a karaoke performance of another song from “Oklahoma!” later in the film, a rehearsal of the lovers’ first meeting that recalls every famous onscreen iteration of those lovers from Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes to Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow to Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey and all the way to that inevitable death scene where suddenly the crude amateur sets are lit with such cinematic softness that it all seems so incandescent. This is movie magic. This is theatrical magic. This is the magic of catharsis. Everyone watching, in the diegesis of the film as well as those watching the film, know this isn’t real. But the emotions are. That yearning. That desperation. That sadness. That want. The sincerity.
Ghostlight is currently available for renting or purchase on AppleTV, Prime Video and other streaming services.
