Ghostlight: Spiritually uplifting

Ghostlight (2024) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.15.24

Shakespeare never gets old.

 

(That said, I’ll get back to The Bard in a moment.)

 

Dan (Keith Kupferer) desperately needs to find a way to bond with his out-of-control
daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), but remains oblivious to the fact that
she isn't their little family's biggest problem.

Chicago-based co-directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson have created a superbly nuanced depiction of a family’s struggle to overcome grief: as delicately shaped and intimate a film as I’ve seen in a long time.

O’Sullivan also wrote the wholly persuasive script, which never hits a wrong note. The performances are equally sublime, with all major roles played by veterans of the Windy City’s theater circuit, which O’Sullivan knows quite well.

 

At the risk of succumbing to cliché, this film will make you laugh and cry in equal measure.

 

Dan (Keith Kupferer) is a city construction worker, currently part of a crew tearing up a Waukegan street in front of a dilapidated storefront theater. The noise is deafening, to the point that Dan gets a tongue-lashing from spunky Rita (Dolly De Leon), who’s connected with whatever is going on inside the theater.

 

His bewildered lack of reaction is typical of the man we watched rise earlier that day, heading off to work as Oklahoma’s “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” plays in the background: as upbeat as Dan’s demeanor is downbeat. He seems to carry the weight of the world on his massive shoulders; his expression is blank, his manner resigned, his emotions so repressed that we cannot imagine him smiling.

 

His work shift is interrupted when he and his wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen), are called to the school where their teenage daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), once again has misbehaved: this time to the ragged edge of expulsion. In several swift scenes, with emotionally jagged strokes, Mallen Kupferer depicts a girl in full-blown emotional meltdown: disrespectful, profane, erratic and given to savage outbursts.

 

We quickly learn, via O’Sullivan’s deft touch with sparse dialogue, that Dan and Sharon are at wit’s end; they’ve spent time on patience, counseling and other efforts to “fix” Daisy, while paying insufficient attention to their own fraying marriage.

 

But as it turns out, Daisy isn’t actually the problem.

 

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret — Absolutely marvelous

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (2023) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for thematically suggestive material, and mild sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.28.23

Film adaptations of popular novels are rarely this faithful.

 

It’s not merely a matter of director/scripter Kelly Fremon Craig retaining all the crucial plot points of Judy Blume’s 1970 coming-of-age classic; it’s easy enough to check such boxes. But Fremon Craig also captures the book’s essential tone and atmosphere, along with the blend of eagerness, humiliation, humor, excitement and stubborn determination that fuels the young protagonist’s journey into nascent womanhood.

 

Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson, right) — determined to purchase her first bra, but
horrified by the process (check her expression!) — gamely navigates a
fraught-with-peril visit to a department store, in the company of her sympathetic
and knowing mother (Rachel McAdams).

Kudos, as well, to Fremon Craig and the casting agents who found such talented young actors for all the key tween roles: most notably Abby Ryder Fortson’s totally endearing handling of the title character.

Everything — every performance, dramatic hiccup, youthfully exaggerated tragedy and excruciating embarrassment — feels authentic.

 

(The degree to which this is true became obvious quite quickly, during last Saturday’s preview screening, when Constant Companion, in a blend of amazement and horror, kept mumbling things such as “Oh, gawd,” “Just like it happened” and “That was me.”)

 

Although remembered primarily for 12-year-old Margaret’s desperate desire to experience her first period — the frequent subject of her chats with God, and the major reason Blume’s novel has long been the target of blue-nosed book-banners — the parallel plot line, touching on Margaret’s exploration of religion, is equally crucial.

 

The film retains the book’s 1970 setting, and events take place during Margaret Simon’s sixth-grade school year. As the story begins, in a sweetly fleeting montage, Margaret is shown having a blast at summer camp. She then returns to her New York City home, and the tightly knit family unit that includes her parents (Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie, as Barbara and Herb) and grandmother Sylvia (scene-stealing Kathy Bates, blessed with impeccable line delivery).

 

Unfortunately, this happy reunion is tarnished by the news that her parents are moving them to a New Jersey suburb, leaving Sylvia — Herb’s mother — behind. Distressed by that, and the thought of never seeing her friends again, Margaret is crushed.

 

But she rebounds quickly, thanks to an immediate visit from new neighbor Nancy Wheeler (Elle Graham), a boldly confident girl who’s proud of her developing breasts, and somewhat astonished by Margaret’s, ah, lack of same. Upon learning that they’ll be in the same sixth-grade class, Nancy invites Margaret to become the fourth and final member of a “secret club” that includes Janie Loomis (Amari Alexis Price) and Gretchen Potter (Katherine Mallen Kupferer).

 

Although the latter two girls seem kind and pleasant enough, Nancy — as self-appointed club leader — frequently enhances her own ego, at the not-always-subtle expense of the others. It’s perhaps unfair to call Nancy a “mean girl,” since she never seems deliberately spiteful, but her audacious behavior often pushes the others — and particularly Margaret — beyond their comfort zone.