Last night I watched a remarkable movie called Ghostlight. I was going to include a short review of it along with my monthly "What I watched in..." update, but by the end of the film I knew I had to give it it's own separate review.
Spoiler warning. Do not read this review until you've seen the movie and...please. Please! See the movie.
Ghostlight is about a grieving family navigating the aftermath of a horrible loss. The film mostly focuses on Dan Mueller (Keith Kupferer), the middle-aged father who works a blue collar job in construction and is struggling with how to rein in his rebellious teenage daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), and remain connected to his wife Sharon (Tara Mallen). You'll notice that the Mueller family is played by an actual family. Ghostlight is, above all, honest and realistic. Most of the actors are not well known, so there's no star power getting in the way of believing that these characters are real people.
The loss that the Mueller family is processing is the suicide of son Brian. They are suing the family of Brian's girlfriend, Christine (Lia Cubilete), who they believe encouraged the suicide. The teens decided to kill themselves when Christine's family planned on moving and Brian couldn't move with her. They both took pills. Christine woke up. Brian didn't.
Dan gets pulled into a role in a community theatre production of Romeo and Juliet, purely because his construction site is outside of the playhouse, and lead actress Rita (Dolly de Leon) notices that Dan seems on edge and angry. She invites him to read for the part of Lord Capulet, explaining that it seems to her that Dan might want to pretend to be someone else for a while. Despite Dan being extremely outside his comfort zone, he keeps coming back and eventually he is cast in the role of Romeo with Rita as Juliet. The two are middle-aged--the wrong ages for the part, but the right ages to match each other.
Now, at this point you might say "Hmmm, a grieving father cast in the role of a teenage boy who makes a suicide pact with his girlfriend, just like the man's own son did? Pretty big coincidence!" Indeed, this is the only aspect of Ghostlight that is a bit silly and unbelievable. But if you can set that aside, or see it as a situation in which life gives you exactly what you need in the moment, it really is a beautiful example of how art imitates life and vice versa, and how art allows us to process and face difficult emotions.
Through acting and theatre, Dan is able to finally empathize with how his son felt at the moment he took his own life. Dan's rage transforms to understanding, allowing him to really grieve and, importantly, forgive Christine and Christine's family. There is an absolutely heartbreaking moment where Dan runs into Christine at a mini golf park and she tearfully apologizes to him and says "I didn't mean to wake up". GAH.
Ghostlight is one of the most humane, honest, vulnerable, and real movies I've seen in awhile. It reminds me of why I love movies (and books) so much: they help me feel things. You can't connect with your emotions while scrolling through social media, not really. You may feel anger and rage and self-righteousness, but those are shadows of the actual emotions lurking beneath: the hurt, the fear, the vulnerability. That's where longer form art comes in. Movies, TV shows, books...fucking opera, man. You need something more in order to access and process those more complex feelings. And many people either can't or won't go that deep. I've lived a pretty sheltered and lucky life, with some struggles but nothing like the loss of a child. But I want to be able to understand and empathize with someone who has struggled with that. Not because I actually want to experience trauma and loss myself (who does?), but because despite my introversion and misanthropy, I want to connect to other human beings. And just as Dan finds that art allows him a safe space to feel and process, I find that movies like Ghostlight are a safe space to feel and process.
Don't be afraid to read and watch sad things. By doing so, you become more human.
Grade: A+
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