Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan’s moving, gently comic collaboration is about the power of live theater to make sense of our offstage dramas and personal narratives. GHOSTLIGHT centers on Dan (Keith Kupferer), a melancholic middle-aged construction worker grieving a family tragedy. Cut off from his devoted wife Sharon (Tara Mallen) and talented but troubled daughter Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), Dan finds comfort and community in a misfit company of amateur actors. While moonlighting in a low-rent production of Shakespeare’s most protean tragedy, Dan is forced to confront his buried emotions. Real-life family Mallen, Kupferer and Mallen Kupferer bring tenderness and authenticity to this poignant portrait, while Dolly de Leon — last seen stealing the scene in TRIANGLE OF SADNESS — is hilarious as Dan’s irascible, improbable co-star.
“In all that funniness and goodness and very real drama, something rare: a film that makes you marvel at the pleasure of storytelling as an actual practice, not an oft-repeated buzzword with little actual emotion behind it.” —Kate Erbland, IndieWire
“A masterfully crafted work with nearly no false notes, Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson’s GHOSTLIGHT is a tender drama bearing profound moments of humor and small triumphs.” —John Fink, Film Stage
“GHOSTLIGHT is a comedy in a loose sense, a tragedy in another, and a redemption song in yet one more. More succinctly, it’s a Thompson film, meaning it gently, tenderly unpacks and embodies every single feeling its characters might have about their situation at hand. “ —Andrew Crump, Paste Magazine