Two weeks ago I had never even heard of the 2024 drama Ghostlight, and now it’s a serious contender to make my Top 10 List of the Year. With a touching story and engaging characters, Ghostlight may be this year’s CODA–and sadly will go on to be criminally underseen.
Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson direct the screenplay by O’Sullivan, which revolves around a construction worker who is going through a rough patch in life. His family is dealing with a horrific tragedy, his fierce teenage daughter is acting out at school, and he’s swimming in debt. So he does what anyone would do in such a situation: he joins a local theater production of “Romeo and Juliet.”
Keither Kupferer gives a terrific performance as Dan, offering audiences a character who at first appears to be straightforward and simple but shows immense vulnerabilities as his story progresses. Kupferer is more than up to the task, giving us one of the more likable characters of the year.
Meanwhile, his real-life daughter Katherine Mallen Kupferer steals scenes left and right. A firebrand if there ever was one, Katherine electrifies Ghostlight in ways that are hard to describe; she’s absolutely great.
Tara Mallen, in a smaller but still important role, is also stellar, the grounding force. She, by no coincidence, is both the on-screen and in-real-life matriarch.
Acting aside, Ghostlight is just a movie that enters your soul and embraces it. Equally somber and uplifting, it’s such a naturally engaging movie about loss, grief, and recovery it’s almost unrivaled in that regard. I had to stop the movie midway through watching it, and the hours away were excruciating; I couldn’t wait to get back and watch how the dynamics of this challenged family unfold.
If you’d have asked me two weeks ago what the most captivating movie I’d watched in recent memory, I never would have thought to say Ghostlight. This is one of those quiet sleeper films that will never get broad acclaim or receive a flashy Oscar push, but that doesn’t make it any less rewarding.
Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.