A Clinical Psychologist Goes to the Movies, Part 3

Films can be an incredibly powerful way to learn about mental illness and psychopathology – watching films relevant to mental health can help professionals to become more productive as therapists, and help students become more adept at recognizing and understanding symptoms and behaviors. To supplement the recent publication of the fifth edition of Movies and Mental Illness, in which I explore more than 1,500 movies and the characters involved, I am pleased to present a series of “Spotlight” articles that will critically examine the psychological content of new movies as they are released. 

This third Spotlight  reviews the film Ghostlight (2024). 

Ghostlight

A ghostlight is a single dim bulb left burning on a theater stage so stagehands can see just enough to move furniture and props around between scenes.  It is both a metaphor, and the title of a remarkable 2024 film about grief and love directed by Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson.   

Ghostlight opens with a tense scene between a teenager (Daisy) and her parents.  Daisy is clearly acting out, and she was recently suspended from school after an altercation with a teacher.  A friendly counselor recommends family therapy, which this blue-collar family attempts, although they cannot afford the sessions ($150/hour), and they all have real reservations about the value of psychotherapy.  The daughter overcomes her early reluctance to participate and finds therapy useful; her working-class father is less enthusiastic and walks out of his first session with the therapist. 

The family is grieving over the loss of Brian, their 17-year-old son and brother who committed suicide by taking an overdose of prescription medication.  His girlfriend took the medication from her mother’s medicine cabinet; both teenagers attempted suicide by taking the pills, but the girlfriend wakes up the next morning, only to discover her boyfriend dead and lying next to her.  The two teens were distraught because the girl’s parents were moving to another city, and Brian’s parents wouldn’t let him follow her to this new location.   

Much of the slowly evolving tension in the film revolves around preparation for a deposition as part of a wrongful death lawsuit targeting the girlfriend’s parents, who allowed their daughter unfettered access to their medicine cabinet (reminiscent of current lawsuits targeting parents who allow their children access to guns subsequently used in school shootings).Healing and reunification begin when the grieving father, however unlikely, is cast as an overaged Romeo in a community theater production of Romeo and Juliet, despite having never read or seen the play.  After overcoming her suspicions that her father is having an affair, Daisy is persuaded to join the cast.  Ultimately, the family is able to reunite and share their grief, supported by the other actors in the play.   

This sweet movie beautifully captures the “sturm und drang” associated with adolescence, as well as the tension that every family most certainly experiences after the suicide of a child.  The film also illustrates Oscar Wilde’s contention that “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”.   

Families and Suicide

It’s hard to imagine anything more devastating for a parent than the death of a child who has committed suicide.  However, suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15–29 year-olds, so this is a reality thousands of parents have had to face. Memorable films that have captured the effects of a teen suicide (or a suicide attempt) on families include Ordinary People (1980), Dead Poets Society (1979), The Virgin Suicides (1999), the documentary Boy Interrupted (2009), and The Son (2022). 

Family Therapy

Ghostlight contains relatively few scenes depicting a therapist interacting with the grieving family; however, family therapy would clearly be the treatment of choice in this situation.  Pineda and Dadds (2013) have documented the efficacy of family-focused treatments for adolescent suicidal behavior in outpatient settings, and Jurich (2008) has devoted an entire book to explaining how family therapy can be used to treat suicidal adolescents.  Clinicians interested in learning more about how to work with suicidal clients can learn a great deal by reading Richard McKeon’s 2022 book Suicidal Behavior, a volume in the Advances in Psychotherapy: Evidence Based Practice series developed by Hogrefe and the Society of Clinical Psychology (APA Division 12). 

Why You will Love This Movie

The three major actors in the film are a family in real life, and they work well together.  They are supported by Dolly De Leon, a wonderful Filipina actress best known for her role as a toilet cleaner on a luxury yacht in Triangle of Sadness (2022). Ghostlight is a lovely film that achieves closure as the family is united and returns home after one performance of the play.  Although the premise seems somewhat unrealistic (with two older people playing the roles of Romeo and Juliet), the film works and leaves the viewer appreciating the beauty of families and the support family members can offer one another when tragedies occur.  You can watch this film on AMC+, or rent it through Amazon Prime Video. 

References

Jurich, A. P. (2008). Family therapy with suicidal adolescents. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. 

Keating, S. S., Baker-Nauman, L., & Shine, M. (2022). The healing art of performing and witnessing Shakespeare: Transferring drama therapy skills to the theatre classroom inside prison and beyond. Drama Therapy Review, 8(1), 59 – 78. https://doi.org/10.1386/dtr_00093_1 

McKeon, R. (2022). Suicidal behavior (2nd ed.). Hogrefe.  https://doi.org/10.1027/00506-000 

Pineda, J., & Dadds, M. R. (2013). Family intervention for adolescents with suicidal behavior: A randomized controlled trial and mediation analysis. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 52(8), 851–862. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2013.05.015 

Raskin, J. (2023).  Unthinkable: Trauma, truth, and the trials of American democracy.  HarperCollins.