The excellent new American indie film A Little Prayer stars David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck; Matewan; Lincoln; many, many more) as a man trying to protect his daughter-in-law when he finds out that his son is cheating on her. Filmmaker Angus MacLachlan also wrote Junebug, the 2005 comedic drama that featured Amy Adams’s breakthrough role, and his new film features a similar star-making turn by the young actress Jane Levy as the daughter-in-law.
MacLachlan wrote the following about his movie:
“I began writing A Little Prayer in 2016 when my daughter was 15. She’s now 21. And I realize in retrospect that I was writing about parenting adult children. How you still want to protect them and tell them what to do, and you can’t.
“Family, and the life I observe, is a subject I find myself returning to again and again in my work. The push-pull of love, loyalties, secrets, and eternal ties. I wanted to tell a story about the people around me: their humor, pathos, and courage. It is what I find endlessly fascinating. We shot the film in my hometown of Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 2022.
“The central relationship in my film – that of Bill and his daughter-in-law Tammy – is in some ways a simulacrum of the fact that I no longer have the same responsibility to guide my own daughter through her adult life. The theme of loving someone enough to let them go is reflected back to me in this story.” — Angus MacLachlan, Director
“A Little Prayer is spare yet brisk, and it unfolds with a graceful, almost musical sense of modulation: Camp and Weston, both veterans of MacLachlan’s work, strike bracing high notes of acerbic wit.” ~ Justin Chang, The New Yorker
“Everyone is good to great, but [A Little Prayer] belongs to Strathairn and Levy, whose bond becomes the center of the film.” ~ Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
“There is much to enjoy in watching MacLachlan’s A Little Prayer play out, and an equal amount of wisdom to be gleaned from it.” ~ Fionnuala Halligan, Screen International
“A tough, touching film.” ~ Ty Burr, Ty Burr’s Watch List (Substack)
“MacLachlan’s writing style is at once honest and slightly elevated, the kind we’re used to hearing on stage, where the structure of the entire script matters, and subtext is every bit as important as what’s spoken.” ~ Peter Debruge, Variety
“Small-scale and finely tuned.” ~ Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter