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‘Ghostlight’ Review: A Searing Family Tragedy Becomes A Riveting Redemption Story – Sundance Film Festival


Getting impatient for Kenneth Lonergan to get his act together and make another great movie? Ghostlight should scratch that itch and more besides, being a funny, intelligent and yet at times almost…

Although technically an ensemble piece, with a lovely cast of supporting players whose thespian antics will ring a bell with actors of all generations, it rests squarely on a powerhouse performance from Chicago stage veteran Keith Kupferer, whose career must surely about to enter a whole new phase, perhaps to the fill the void left by the late, great Brian Dennehy. Directed by Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson, who caused a splash at SXSW in 2019 with Saint Frances, Ghostlight opens with a curtain-up, as construction worker Dan Mueller faces another grim morning digging holes in Chicago’s busy streets. It will be a full hour before Kelly O’Sullivan’s terrific script reveals what the Muellers’ secret is, but it soon becomes clear that Dan is not just drawn to the company of strangers in their charmingly off-kilter world of make-believe, he is also mulling over the play’s meaning, about the senseless loss of two young lives: if he can make sense of Shakespeare’s text, maybe he can lay his demons to rest.

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