There is no filmmaking duo whose work I await with greater anticipation than Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson. In 2019, Thompson made his debut feature, “Saint Frances,” written by and starring O’Sullivan as a thirty-something nanny with an unwanted pregnancy, who forges a bond with the six-year-old she looks after. O’Sullivan brought her next script, “Ghostlight,” to the screen in 2024, while sharing co-directing duties with Thompson. The film centered on a family grappling with unimaginable loss, who find catharsis through their participation in an unconventional community theatre production of “Romeo and Juliet.”
The family in that film were portrayed by a real-life couple, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble co-founders Tara Mallen and Keith Kupferer, and their daughter, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, on the heels of her breakout role in Kelly Fremon Craig’s “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” Imagine if Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd had remained together, appearing in films with their daughter Laura Dern, and you’ll have a good approximation of the astonishing talent on display when the Mallen Kupferers are onscreen.
Just as “Saint Frances” was released mere years prior to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, “Ghostlight”—which was a Sundance hit after only being completed the previous fall—illustrates how much we are guaranteed to lose in light of the current administration’s defunding of the National Endowment of the Arts. In some ways, O’Sullivan and Thompson are inadvertently chronicling the vestiges of an America that no longer exists, and must be fought for in order to be rebuilt. How fitting then that their third film, “Mouse,” premiering today at Berlinale, is a period piece set in 2002, with a premise inspired by a traumatic event that occurred to O’Sullivan in her youth.
In a nation still reeling from the devastation of 9/11, Minnie (Katherine Mallen Kupferer, in a magnificent, star-making turn) is set to have a carefree summer with her best friend, Callie (Chloe Coleman), until a sudden tragedy upends all their plans. With her sense of normalcy irrevocably ruptured, Minnie finds herself developing a deep friendship with Callie’s mother, Helen (a sublime Sophie Okonedo), a classical pianist inching her way out of a long-expired marriage. Minnie and Helen have a shared understanding that evades the grasp of the teen’s own mom, Barbara (Tara Mallen), who has a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment, despite the best of intentions.
In broad strokes, “Mouse” would seem to be following the formula of “Ghostlight,” with its grief-stricken characters destined to feel cleansed by a climactic theatrical production, in this case, a talent show put on by drama teacher Mr. Murdaugh (David Hyde Pierce). Yet O’Sullivan’s script—her third consecutive masterpiece of acutely perceptive nuance—avoids all of the expected emotional payoffs, instead delving into territory that is trickier, messier, and in the end, more rewarding.
The revelation among this film’s impeccably cast ensemble is the utterly endearing Iman Vellani, best known for her Marvel projects, as Minnie’s crush, Kat (the pair first meet in a video rental store, which is alone enough to make a movie buff swoon). Mallen earns some of the film’s biggest laughs as she attempts to remain close to her daughter, who appears to be slipping further and further away, spurred in part by embarrassment. The empathy that has been branded an increasingly diminished resource in our current sociopolitical era is indelibly portrayed in a late scene between the two mothers, after Barbara says something to Helen that would seem unforgivable, had Mallen not prepared us for it every step of the way.
Taken together, “Saint Frances,” “Ghostlight” and now “Mouse” are among the three finest American films of the new millennium, as well as a welcome antidote to the authoritarianism striving to vanquish every last trace of democracy and decency from our country. There is nothing preachy about these pictures, which is what makes their uncommon humanism resonate all the deeper. To those Chicagoans unafraid of DEI, I highly recommend paying a visit to Rivendell, which like Cinema Femme, elevates the work of female artists—specifically playwrights. Keith Kupferer and Tara Mallen are currently appearing together in Hallie Gordon’s production of Alex Lubischer’s Pivot, followed in May by Katherine Mallen Kupferer’s Rivendell debut in Jessica Fisch’s production of Melissa Ross’ Do Something Pretty. As for O’Sullivan and Thompson’s next movie, “The Steel Harp,” it cannot arrive soon enough.
