By 
In the UK, reading Shakespeare in school is something of a rite of passage. It’s usually an essential part of the English curriculum. Which one you read might depend on the school, or the teacher, or the circumstance. For this reviewer growing up in Scotland, it was MacBeth. For many others, The Tempest, or King Lear, or – perhaps most commonly – Hamlet. Or, perhaps, you read what may arguably the most mainstream of Shakespeare’s plays, Romeo & Juliet.
If you did read the tragic story of the star-crossed lovers, did you consider it a swooning romance? A example of pure, undistilled love? Or did you, as many do now that they’re adults and unburdened by rose-tinted adolescence, see it as a cautionary tale? A warning not to let emotions cloud your judgement? To make too hasty a decision without first considering the consequences?
This is the backdrop to Kelly O’Sullivan‘s absolutely wonderful Ghostlight. A film about a family trying to cope with a horrible tragedy, in a surprising way. Ghostlight is honest and raw at times, uncomfortable at others, and never less than totally authentic. It’s anchored by a real life acting family and tethered together with a deft script that only sometimes strays slightly into cloying sentimentality. It unearths and examines the toxic (male?) trait of supressing emotions, bottling feelings that feel too heavy to accept.
Tragedy
Dan (Keith Kupferer) is a middle-aged labourer, working construction outside of a theatre. A tragedy has befallen the family and Dan responds to this tragedy by shutting his emotions down, refusing to engage with his wife Sharon (Kupferer‘s real life wife Tara Mallen), and giving the absolute bare minimum to their troubled teenage daughter Daisy (Kupferer and Mallen‘s real life daughter Katherine Mallen Kupferer). Daisy is the complete opposite of Dan: where the father is an emotional stonewall, the daughter wears her heart on her sleeve, lashing out at everyone who tries to supress her or change the subject of her grief – as her parents are consistently doing. Daisy wants to talk about the tragedy, about her feelings and how she is coping, but everyone around her wants to move on and Daisy is – understandably – so upset about this that she causes problems for everyone in a very dry, acerbic way.
Things come to a head when Dan lashes out at a passing motorist who takes exception to the construction work blocking his way, leading to a physical confrontation. Observing this confrontation is Rita (Dolly de Leon) an actor in an am-dram production of Romeo & Juliet taking place at the theatre. Rita sees something in Dan and convinces him to join the production. Dan is bemused and reluctant at first, tagging along solely out of curiosity. Over time though he finds something valuable – an escape from his emotions, and the cage he feels trapped in. But when the curtain draws back, Dan must finally confront the feelings he has been supressing for so long.
The Power of Grief
Undoubtedly the core part of Ghostlight – and this, taken alongside Bob Trevino Likes It, and My Dead Friend Zoe, feels like a theme at the Glasgow Film Festival this year – is on the confrontation of emotion, and the construction of good mental health. Of the three just mentioned, Ghostlight feels like it has nailed it slightly more than its contemporaries: the emotion on display here is raw and uncompromising. Dan is angry, very angry, and he’ll show it. Beneath that anger is his barely concealed grief, which forces him to abandon moments where he on the cusp of being threatened by it – such as at the therapist’s office with his daughter, or rehearsing a scene where his character comes upon his son’s dead body. These moments are raw and visceral – you can feel Dan’s pain. O’Sullivan‘s camera doesn’t shy away from the grief, but rather lingers into uncomfortable territory. She is asking the audience to bear witness to the anguish, to not look away.
Ghostlight finds pain in the most organic, mundane of circumstances. At a family dinner when Daisy swears, lashing out at her parent’s restraint; in a confrontation with the school principle, who is on the verge of expelling their daughter; in the terse meetings with their lawyer as they discuss a lawsuit they have instigated against another family; at a fairground when they run into their son’s ex-girlfriend; all of these moments are laden with vulnerability, as the family tries to navigate their sorrow.
source: Glasgow Film Festival 2025
The cast are excellent at conveying these characters. Kupferer is a natural fit as Dan, a blue-collar everyman raised in the kind of working class household where emotional intelligence wasn’t a priority. Dan just wants to get by in a no-nonsense way. He feels constantly fed up with everything around him, and genuinely confused by the am-dram group who take him in as one of their own and teach him how to act. Dan carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and it shows, and when Kupferer allows him to let go, it is a richly deserved moment that feels earned. Elsewhere, his daughter Mallen-Kupferer threatens to steal the whole movie. Daisy is a force of nature; headstrong and intelligent, she won’t allow her parents, or anyone else, to ignore the pain of what has happened to them. Her raw stream-of-consciousness tangents are sometimes shocking, but you can see the deep sadness and vulnerability within her in those moments and Mallen-Kupferer portrays it beautifully.
source: Glasgow Film Festival 2025
Elsewhere, Dolly de Leon is fantastic as the droll, witty Rita – responsible for bringing Dan into this creative world and anchoring him to it. Rita recognises pain in Dan and understands that acting is a form of therapy. She is also burdened by her own sadness as a failed actor who couldn’t make it on Broadway, and missed her chance to play Juliet in her youth. The chemistry between her and Dan is palpable and creates the emotional core of the movie, and is only heightened when Daisy joins the production.
Conclusion
Ghostlight highlights the very real possibility of art acting as therapy, that someone can play out their emotions through characters and scenes and find catharsis from it. It is at once profound and moving and insightful, and features some of the most natural chemistry and acting you’ll see on screen this year. Keith Kupferer is magnificent, but his daughter is a match for him, and the rest of the cast are just as game.
Ghostlight screened as part of the Glasgow Film Festival 2025
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