I’ve often said that I’m most moved by human-sized stories, by movies that acknowledge who we are as people and what it means to go through this life. Most of us never have huge moments of catharsis, we’re far more likely to make tiny shifts that might open us up to real growth and change. When a movie can capture that, it’s showing us the truth.
Ghostlight focuses on Dan, a man in his 50s whose small family has experienced a soul-crushingly painful event. We see Dan emotionally running in neutral, his teenage daughter having major behavior problems at school, and his wife trying to get through it all as the family is also gearing up for a major lawsuit associated with their tragedy. Their wound is still wide open. But one day Dan meets a fireball named Rita, and she pushes him into filling in on a local production of Romeo and Juliet, and despite himself, he takes to it. And can any of us doubt the healing power of art?
The rhythms of the movie’s editing and camerawork do sometimes give it a low-budget indie feel, and the acting is not always the most polished, but while I won’t go so far as to say these actually benefit the film, I do wonder if something slicker might not have felt so true. There are moments that play on paper as hokey or even saccharine, but when we see them unfold, they open up deep wells of emotion. Something as small as a hand on a shoulder can make us tremble inside. And there’s a lot to be said for letting people be as quirky as they are in real life, which we might not get with movie stars filling these roles.
Ghostlight is also, in its indirect way, the best Romeo and Juliet adaptation in ages. That it’s able to take something so familiar, a story that’s been told so many times, and then genuinely breathe new life into it is kind of a small miracle. And that it’s able to take the grand tragedy of Shakespeare and quietly remind us of our shared humanity, well, that’s a miracle that’s not quite as small.
Ghostlight is in theaters.
