2024 Sundance Film Festival Movie Review – Ghostlight

Ghostlight was one of the first movies I saw at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and what a start to the festival it was. This is a charming, funny, deeply emotional story about a family coming together after a tragedy.

Ghostlight takes place in Chicago and it is very much a Chicago movie. But it isn’t a Chicago movie like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off that features Chicago landmarks like Navy Pier or the Sears Tower (it’s always Sears, never Willis). The film takes place on the city’s north side and doesn’t feature any of the Chicago staples. But it is a Chicago movie because of its characters. At the center of it all is Dan, played by Keith Kupferer, a blue-collar construction worker who lives with his wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen), and their talented but troubled daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer). Having lived in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs my entire life, I have met several Dan’s. I’ve shaken their hands, I know their interests, I know they don’t say much but when they do, everyone listens. They get mad about the Cubs and the Bears and enjoy going to their favorite dive bar. Kupferer embodies this perfectly, in one of the most authentic Chicago performances I have ever seen.

But beyond him looking like and personifying the blue-collar Chicago man, Kupferer gives an unbelievable, deeply felt performance. As Dan goes about his usual day on the construction site, an actor at a local theater named Rita (an energetic Dolly De Leon) draws Dan in to join her and her small acting team in a local production of Romeo & Juliet. Dan has never acted before nor ever thought about acting, but the more he attends rehearsals, the more he finds comfort with this group of people, allowing him to confront his emotions following a recent family tragedy. Meanwhile, Dan is keeping his new acting role a secret from his wife and daughter, who begin to suspect something is going on when he becomes more and more distant.

Dan keeps everything internal. He always looks like something is wrong, but you would never know because he will never tell you. He suppresses everything and tries to keep a level head and move on. Kupferer wears all the emotional weight of Dan on his shoulders and in his eyes and it’s a lot of weight. Throughout the film, we watch as the weight slowly disappears as Dan learns to express his emotions with the acting team, which is full of entertaining and rich characters who bring out new sides of Dan emotionally and personally that even he didn’t know he had.

Written by Kelly O’Sullivan and directed by O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson, Ghostlight is an emotional journey for Dan and his family. We see each one of them grieve this recent tragedy in their own way, whether it’s internalizing it like Dan, acting out as Daisy does, or trying to keep the family together and not having the opportunity to grieve like Sharon is doing. O’Sullivan and Thompson take their time with these characters and allow us to live with this family, to the point where we feel like we are another member of the family on this journey with them and feel all the ups and downs they are feeling, which makes for a rewarding, heart-soaring finale.

Ghostlight is a huge step forward for O’Sullivan and Thompson as creators, following their 2019 indie gem Saint Frances. O’Sullivan’s script is rich, layered, and humorous, and her direction with Thompson fleshes everything out thanks to a sensational ensemble that is firing on all cylinders. This movie cares about its characters and their journey and takes the proper time to show it to us. Ghostlight is a great movie and will easily be one of the best movies of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

Ghostlight played in the Premieres category at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

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