'Ghostlight': The Play's the Thing

One of 2024's best movies opens this weekend. Here's why you probably haven't heard of it.

Ghostlight, the new feature from co-directors Kelly O’Sullivan (who also wrote the film) and Alex Thompson, garnered a lot of positive buzz when it debuted at Sundance this past January (as of Thursday, June 20th, it sits at 100% positive on Rotten Tomatoes off 52 reviews, which is not easy to do). Hearing the glowing reviews from people I trusted, I made it a point to request a screener link for the movie from the studio since the film opens wide this weekend.

It’s a simple story about a family suffering from a tragic loss, and the solace they find when the father, Dan (Keith Kupferer), joins a community theater production of Romeo & Juliet. That’s it. That’s the movie. It’s a straightforward story, but it works wonderfully because we trust the emotional underpinnings of the material and the cast to bring it to life. When they say at awards ceremonies, “It starts with the script,” this is what they mean. This is not a movie that intends to dazzle with flash; it wants to tell a heartfelt and lovely story about how and why stories can heal us. I loved it.

So why does Ghostlight feel so homeless in today’s marketplace?

Dolly de Leon and Keith Kupferer in Ghostlight | Image via IFC Films

The most frequent follow-up question I get when asked, “What should I go see?” is “Who’s in that?” Ghostlight has no stars. Kupferer has been in major movies but played unnamed characters like “Heckler” in The Dark Knight and “Bank Customer” in The Dilemma. His real-life wife, Tara Mallen, and daughter, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, are both actors and play Dan’s wife Sharon, and daughter Daisy in the movie, respectively. The biggest “name” is Dolly de Leon, who received acclaim for her supporting role in the Oscar-nominated Triangle of Sadness, but I don’t think IFC Films is depending on name recognition for Dolly de Leon to pack theaters.

The movie also isn’t an adaptation. There’s no pre-existing fanbase to draw from although most people are aware of Romeo & Juliet and what community theaters do. But there’s no best-selling novel, classic TV show, or original feature here. We’ve become so accustomed to every story we see on screen having its genesis elsewhere that Ghostlight feels like an anomaly. But it also means it oddly stands alone where new features typically use their IP as a tether of sorts to say, “See! People liked it when it was a TV show/earlier movie/video game/theme park ride/toy!” This is fully O’Sullivan’s screenplay, ingeniously weaving a story about a specific family tragedy into one of the most famous family tragedies of all time.

There’s also the economics of marketing muscle in the theatrical landscape. IFC isn’t a slouch as a distributor. They’ve been around since the late 90s and have backed such successful features as My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Boyhood, The Babadook, and Late Night with the Devil. But they’re not as big as Searchlight or Focus Features, which are subsidiaries of major studios (Disney and Universal, respectively). They can’t do the expensive ad campaigns you’ll see for films like the upcoming Kinds of Kindness or Nosferatu. They don’t have the budget to saturate the airwaves or social media, and they don’t have the name stars to do a junket circuit where they talk about the movie while playing with puppies.

Finally, there’s no “twist” or “you have to see it to believe it,” element with Ghostlight. The movie isn’t overt or obvious, but it’s also not trying to obfuscate beyond making sure that certain emotional reveals and beats land where they need to. This isn’t Saltburn where you need to see how gross or wild it gets, nor is it something like Everything Everywhere All at Once that has a big narrative swing with its multiversal approach to tell a story of a family at the emotional brink. And it’s not necessarily wrong to take those swings, but Ghostlight simply doesn’t do that. It’s not winding you up for something shocking or strange; it’s merely trying to get you to empathize with its characters as its main characters struggle with their emotional turmoil.

That may make Ghostlight sound like a dry downer of a movie, but it’s not. Maybe it’s the theater kid in me, but I loved seeing this tiny troupe of actors bond over putting on a show. I liked the understanding that these stories don’t last because someone arbitrarily decided that William Shakespeare was a good writer. They speak to us through the centuries, and even if the play wasn’t Romeo & Juliet, there’s something beautiful and therapeutic about acting. It allows us to not only escape our troubles but to empathize with the troubles of others. The movie understands that tragedies don’t exist to bum us out but to bring us a measure of solace.

And it’s here that the lack of name stars probably works to the film’s greatest advantage. I love seeing movie stars give memorable performances, but there would be something a little jarring in this intimate tale of a working-class guy discovering how much acting meant to him if that guy was played by Christian Bale. Sometimes the best way for an actor to “disappear” into the role is to not have any prior recognition of that actor and the baggage they bring with them.

We also don’t have to worry about comparisons to other texts. No one has to come into Ghostlight and worry that it won’t live up to the book or the original movie or anything. It gets to exist as its own thing, which is now far too rare in an age of cross-pollination between “brands” and IP.

IFC may not have the money to give Ghostlight a massive push, but it’s also the rare film where critics could make their voices heard in a significant way. I’m happy to see Kinds of Kindness, but even if that film made zero dollars, everyone involved will be fine. Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone are already at work on their next movie together. And that’s not even a blockbuster movie. Ghostlight, on the other hand, needs critics to use whatever clout they have to say, “Trust me on this one; it’s worth your time.”

Perhaps in the age of streaming, that won’t be enough. Maybe my word isn’t enough to get you to leave the house this weekend and pay money to see a movie with no stars and a straightforward premise. But even if you do choose to wait for streaming (and since it’s IFC, I’m not sure where it will land, but a fair few of their recent releases are on Hulu), make time for this lovely movie. It’s one of my favorites of the year, and I think it might end up being one of yours.