"Ghostlight" and "Sing Sing"

I had trouble figuring out how to write about "Ghostlight" and "Sing Sing," which are two of the clear standout films of the year so far.  They're both about how their main characters find redemption and meaning through their participation in amateur acting troupes.  In "Ghostlight," a construction worker named Dan Mueller (Keith Kupferer) stumbles across a tiny group of performers and joins them, which helps him to emotionally connect to his wife (Tara Mallen) and daughter (Katherine Mallen Kupferer) as they weather a family crisis.  In "Sing Sing," we watch a group of prisoners take part in a Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program, including long timer Divine G (Colman Domingo) and newcomer Divine Eye, who plays himself.  

What's difficult for me is that both of these films spend a lot of time examining the acting process, which has always been the aspect of movies and moviemaking that I know and care the least about.  I know good acting when I see it, and have always been - to my discredit - incurious about the actual mechanics of what goes into performances.  Media about the profession of acting hasn't been of much interest to me either - it's a big reason why I abandoned "Barry" pretty quickly.  "Ghostlight" and "Sing Sing," however, are much more accessible.  They're about amateurs who have few pretensions about what they're doing on the stage.  These are people who act because they enjoy it and get something positive out of the act of participating in the shows being staged.  

And the shows being staged are pretty chaotic affairs.  The "Ghostlight" players put on "Romeo and Juliet," with the leads being played by middle-aged adults, as a one-night-only performance.  The RTA group has more funding and experience, and decides to do an original time travel comedy that incorporates ancient Egypt, Freddy Krueger, and "Hamlet," complete with "to be or not to be" soliloquy, to appeal to their inmate audience.  However, both films take pains to demystify the process and capture the positive communal experience of putting on a show like this.  We see a few acting exercises and sit in on a few rehearsals, getting to know the actors as they struggle with their Shakespeare. 

"Ghostlight" strikes me as more successful at doing this.  I didn't recognize any of the actors, with the exception of Dolly de Leon, playing a former professional who is in the group because it's the only way she'll ever get to act in lead roles.  The Mueller family is played by a real couple and their daughter, who bring their existing family dynamic to the screen to good effect.  The conceit that "Romeo and Juliet" is mirroring the Muellers' real life tragedy feels a little too tidy, but the emotional journey that we watch them navigate as a result is handled beautifully.  In both films acting becomes a form of therapy for the actors.  It serves as a way for Dan to access and process emotions that he's been closed off from, helping him transform and heal from the past trauma.

"Sing Sing" is a very different kind of film, with documentary elements and more of a traditional character study with Colman Domingo's performance serving as the main event.  The play is a big part of his story, but the "therapy through acting" arc is given to a supporting character, Divine Eye, while Domingo's Divine G is struggling with a more existential crisis related to his incarceration.  This is a prison drama at the same time that it's a narrative about the creative process.  "Sing Sing" makes it clear that there are limits to what this kind of rehabilitation offers, and there's more emphasis put on the relationships formed between the prisoners in the program.  Nearly all the other actors are real RTA participants playing versions of themselves.  

It's curious, but the characters in "Sing Sing" feel more fictional than the ones in "Ghostlight," often coming across as very idealized versions of real people.  The ones in "Ghostlight" are more well-rounded, and often more relatable.  I'm not sure which take is the better one, and perhaps it's wrongheaded to be comparing these two films at all, but I suspect it's a matter of taste.  And in that spirit, I can happily recommend both.  

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