Backstage drama and crushing grief mix together in this lowkey, deeply affecting tragicomedy.
How to watch Ghostlight in New Zealand
Ghostlight is now screening in New Zealand cinemas, and arrives on AroVision on November 1, 2024
What is Ghostlight about?
Construction worker Dan is struggling to grieve the suicide death of his son, Brian, in the process alienating his drama teacher wife, Sharon, and teenage daughter, Daisy. A chance encounter with community theatre actor Rita leads him to join her repertory company for their latest production. The rub? they’re mounting Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which, as we all know, climaxes with a double suicide. It’ll either be very cathartic or absolutely devastating. Probably both.
This one comes to us from Chicago-based filmmaking team Kelly O’Sullivan (who also penned the script) and Alex Thompson, also a couple in real-life. Made for next to nothing, the film was shot and cut simultaneously in October 2023. It went on to score some lavish reviews at the Sundance Film Festival, where it had its world premiere.
The cast of Ghostlight
Mostly relative unknowns in this one, but the central family are played by an actual family, which is interesting. Keith Kupferer is Dan Mueller; Dolly de Leon (Triangle of Sadness) is Rita; Katherine Mallen Kupferer is Daisy Mueller; Tara Mallen is Sharon Mueller; Lia Cubilete is Christine Hawthorne, the deceased Brian’s former girlfriend. Plus there’s Hanna Dworkin, Tommy Rivera-Vega, Alma Washington, H.B. Ward, and Dexter Zollicoffer in support. Deanna Dunagan, one of the grand dames of the Chicago theatre scene (you may have seen her in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit) crops up playing herself, too.
Ghostlight trailer
Why we’re excited about Ghostlight
We don’t know if we’d put money on it, but we suspect we’re just starting to see indie film re-emerge as a cultural force after almost two decades of blockbuster domination. That’s a good thing. This looks like a genuinely personal vision made with heart and purpose, and we’re here for it.
