{"id":4454,"date":"2022-01-06T13:49:51","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T18:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/?p=4454"},"modified":"2022-01-06T13:49:51","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T18:49:51","slug":"light-from-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/06\/light-from-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Light From Light"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Paul Harrill\u2019s second feature, <em>Light From Light<\/em> (2019) is an even stronger, more assured work than his marvelous first feature <em>Something, Anything<\/em> (2014). The film played at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival where it received very positive reviews from both <em>Variety<\/em> and the <em>Hollywood Reporter<\/em>, and was picked up for distribution by Grasshopper Films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like <em>Something, Anything<\/em>, <em>Light from Light<\/em> is once again understated in its storytelling, with terrific performances by Marin Ireland and Jim Gaffigan. Ireland plays a character named Sheila, a car rental agent and part-time paranormal investigator who is asked by a minister to help a troubled parishioner, Richard, who fears he is being haunted by his deceased ex-wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Harrill uses the genre of the horror film (a ghost story) &#8212; only to undercut it completely. Although part of the film is spent investigating Richard\u2019s possibly haunted house, the film is actually a character study. Richard might be the person haunted by a past relationship, but it turns out it is really Sheila who has closed herself off as a result of the past, and she is already laying the foundations for haunting her own son\u2019s future. Sheila sees it as trying to protect him from being hurt, but, in actuality, she\u2019s passing along her own sad and negative views of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What is most striking about the film is Harrill\u2019s highly nuanced script, in which everything resides under the surface and hardly anything is spoken. The subtext creates a dramatic tension that proves riveting, especially in a spellbinding 10-minute section later in the film, where the two main characters obliquely reveal themselves. It is an utterly masterful scene of writing, performance, and direction, which reveals Harrill\u2019s incredible talents as a filmmaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Harrill\u2019s simplicity is his strength. <em>Light From Light <\/em>is an ensemble piece. It focuses on the four main characters: Sheila and Richard, and Sheila\u2019s son, Owen and his girlfriend Lucy. A lot of the story takes places in a few locations. Yet Harrill is able to create a powerful character study that has incredible depth and mystery. As he told <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.filmcomment.com\/blog\/interview-paul-harrill\/\">Film Comment<\/a><\/em>: \u201cThe deeper you get to know someone in real life, the more they also grow in their mystery to you\u2014at least sometimes. It should be that way with fictional characters, too.\u201d Harrill is interested in characters who struggle with their emotions, characters who are not good at emoting, yet, like in a Bresson film, we nevertheless get a sense of their inner struggles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Light From Light<\/em> is available for streaming on a number of platforms, including Amazon Prime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Harrill\u2019s second feature, Light From Light (2019) is an even stronger, more assured work than his marvelous first feature Something, Anything (2014). The film played at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival where it received very positive reviews from both<a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/06\/light-from-light\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,73,88,9,1],"tags":[95,90,94,89],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4454"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4454"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4460,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4454\/revisions\/4460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}