When Chicago-based filmmakers Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson first got here throughout our radar with their charming “Saint Frances,” it was clear we had been witnessing the delivery of a powerhouse pair of indie filmmakers. Even in that first movie, which marked Thompson’s characteristic directorial debut and that O’Sullivan each wrote and starred in, what would develop into their signature was apparent: a canny mixture of coronary heart and humor that transcend fundamental loglines.
“Saint Frances” was ultimately nominated for 3 Gotham Awards and the Indie Spirits’ vaunted John Cassavetes Award, and when chatting with IndieWire about their pleasant gem, the pair even admitted that straightforward plotlines don’t fairly do their works justice. “Saint Frances” comes with what looks as if a downer of an outline: “After an unintended being pregnant turned abortion, a deadbeat nanny finds an unlikely friendship with the 6-year-old she’s charged with defending.” Because the duo informed IndieWire in 2021, “We struggled with that line too. It’s so humorous, each time we describe the film, we simply wish to say like, ‘We all know, however—’” (that’s O’Sullivan), with Thompson slicing in, “It’s humorous! It’s good!”
That is all a method of claiming that, with their subsequent movie — “Ghostlight,” which the pair directed collectively — they’re working in related territory. The movie, which debuted at Sundance this January earlier than being snapped up by IFC Movies, arrived in Park Metropolis with its personal not-quite-it logline: “When a building employee unexpectedly joins an area theater’s manufacturing of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ the drama onstage begins to reflect his personal life.”
In fact, that’s all true, however it’s simply the beginning of a movie that this author famous in our IndieWire assessment, “makes you marvel on the pleasure of storytelling as an precise follow, not an oft-repeated buzzword with little precise emotion behind it.” It’s humorous. It’s good.
The movie stars a real-life household, with Keith Kupferer as Dan Mueller (the development employee of the synopsis), together with his spouse Tara Mallen starring as Dan’s spouse Sharon (a theater instructor and the soul of the household), plus their daughter Katherine Mallen Kupferer (who some might acknowledge from final 12 months’s charming “Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret”) as their troubled daughter Daisy.
After an on-the-job outburst is witnessed by a local people theater group (led by a pleasant Dolly De Leon, who performs the spiky and outspoken Rita), Dan finds himself unexpectedly pulled into their orbit. He doesn’t know a lot in regards to the manufacturing they’re placing on (even when it’s the most well-known Shakespeare play), a element that takes on added resonance after we find out about Sharon’s job and Daisy’s personal theatrical streak. Because the household, plus Rita’s wacky band of theater buddies, pull collectively to placed on a present, one thing really particular unfolds.
Try the primary trailer for “Ghostlight,” an IndieWire unique, beneath. IFC Movies will launch the movie in New York and Chicago theaters on Friday, June 14, with a nationwide rollout to observe.