‘A Little Prayer’: David Strathairn and Director Angus MacLachlan Break Down Their Quiet, Heart-Wrenching Sundance Indie
A film editor friend of mine makes the same complaint every time I see him: “No one makes movies about the way people live now.”
It’s not incorrect. The “slice of life” genre doesn’t necessarily pack in cineplexes the way horror, superhero movies (for now) and video game adaptations do. That’s why “A Little Prayer” came as a great relief – and a quiet revelation – at Sundance in January 2023.
Angus MacLachlan delivered one of the most thoughtful and definitive indie movies that year (the same filmmaker whose screenplay “Junebug” helped catapult Amy Adams to household-name status twenty years ago). “A Little Prayer” is set in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where a humble patriarch (David Strathairn) contends with the serious shortcomings of his adult children (Will Pullen, Anna Camp). As his affable wife (Celia Weston) ticks away the days with her trusted daughter-in-law (Jane Levy), her husband contends with his son’s mistress (Dascha Polanco) and the choices that lead him to an inevitable emotional reckoning.
The film touches on a variety of topical issues – from abortion to veteran PTSD – yet feels timeless and honest in the way that the best indies can. Variety caught up with the filmmaker and star as their film marks a second weekend in limited release.
How did this premise come to you, Angus?
Angus MacLachlan: I started at nine years ago. I realize in retrospect that I started when my daughter was 15, and now she’s 24. I am often conscious that I write very unconsciously. I find out after what it is that I was trying to get at. A lot of this was about my daughter growing up and becoming a human being. I still want to protect her and tell her what to do, and I can’t anymore. This script has a lot of elements of other things I’ve written. I don’t sit and say, “I’m going to write about adult children living with their parents again,” which is the same as in “Junebug.” Or about the loss of a child again. Even the “hot button” political aspects of this film – like PTSD or a woman’s right to choose – I never think I’m going to write a movie about that. I’m interested in people. That’s my intention.
David Strathairn: I love qualifying this film as one about the way people live. I think it’s essential in a culture where we’re getting fractured and separated from our neighbors and communities. It’s a time gone by, when people would get together and share what’s going on. The post office, the grocery store, all these communalities that have been compromised by modern technology. This film, for me, was taking the roof off the top of a house down the road and saying, “Oh yeah, these people are going through the sort of the same things.” People strive and try to do their best to move through life; there’s a simple element of compassion in this film.
Angus, the film does feel very timely, given those issues you mentioned, like abortion and PTSD. How do you manage that element and still make this feel timeless?
AM: These issues become very different when they come home to roost in one’s own family. When you have to say this thing that maybe I object to or have difficulty with is happening to someone that I love. That’s fascinating to me. I’m old enough to remember that happening during the AIDS crisis, where people had strong opinions, and then someone they knew got sick, and that changed their idea of extrapolating it away from the human heart.
This cast has an incredibly natural dynamic. Talk about putting them all together.
AM: As someone who was an actor, I don’t really like auditioning people. I work with a great casting director, Mark Bennett, who also cast “Junebug” and brought us Amy Adams. I had approached David about being in my earlier film, “Abundant Acreage Available,” and he couldn’t do it. He was nice enough to stay in touch with me. I needed an actor that had great gravitas and honor. Celia Weston has been in two of my other films, and I love her. She’s incredible in that, and she has this ability to have such emotional verisimilitude and then turn a line comedically on a dime.
Mark brought me Will Pullen and Jane Levy. And with Jane, after I cast her, they sent me clips from her TV series “Zoe’s Extraordinary Playlist.” I saw she was so talented because she sings and dances and does physical comedy. Dascha Polanco, I knew of her and thought she would be great. The other one that’s interesting is Ashley Shelton, who plays Bethany, and Anna Camp, who’s been in two of my films, and I love.
I’d love to break down arguably the most important scene of the film, which is an exchange between David and Jane Levy at the end of the film. David, you have such a special dynamic with Jane. Do you feel a fatherly instinct toward her, as happens in the film?
DS: That scene hits me hard, still does when I think about it. It’s a moment in my character’s trajectory where he has to come out of his shell. He’s not the most loquacious guy. There are mines in his family, and they’ve all somehow navigated those minefields. But he’s got to come clean and open up. The way Angus wrote and filmed this, it was gentle but incisive. I think of Jane with so much respect for her performance, I do have this kind of paternal – it’s weird, because I’m playing an old guy feeling for her. And I’m an actor watching this actress whose skills and depth of emotion are on full display.
AM: I just want to add that we shot this scene on day 4 out of 19. Jane tells David that they are “kindred spirits.” My wonderful DP Scott Miller was kneeling in front of them. The camera starts on Jane, and then moves over to David, and then comes back to Jane. When I saw it in the monitor, I thought, “If I don’t fuck up anything else, I’ve got it.” That scene is the confluence of everything.
David, you also have an incredible confrontation with Dascha’s character. You discover she’s keeping your son’s baby, conceived in an affair he’s been concealing from his wife, played by Jane.
DS: It’s quite something, the things my character says about his adult children. He probably didn’t feel like that for most of his life, and boom, here comes an awareness which he is now reckoning with. I think that makes him somewhat of a brave guy to be able to voice it. On a universal scale, it’s great to see a man speak his heart.
It’s not incorrect. The “slice of life” genre doesn’t necessarily pack in cineplexes the way horror, superhero movies (for now) and video game adaptations do. That’s why “A Little Prayer” came as a great relief – and a quiet revelation – at Sundance in January 2023.
Angus MacLachlan delivered one of the most thoughtful and definitive indie movies that year (the same filmmaker whose screenplay “Junebug” helped catapult Amy Adams to household-name status twenty years ago). “A Little Prayer” is set in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where a humble patriarch (David Strathairn) contends with the serious shortcomings of his adult children (Will Pullen, Anna Camp). As his affable wife (Celia Weston) ticks away the days with her trusted daughter-in-law (Jane Levy), her husband contends with his son’s mistress (Dascha Polanco) and the choices that lead him to an inevitable emotional reckoning.
The film touches on a variety of topical issues – from abortion to veteran PTSD – yet feels timeless and honest in the way that the best indies can. Variety caught up with the filmmaker and star as their film marks a second weekend in limited release.
How did this premise come to you, Angus?
Angus MacLachlan: I started at nine years ago. I realize in retrospect that I started when my daughter was 15, and now she’s 24. I am often conscious that I write very unconsciously. I find out after what it is that I was trying to get at. A lot of this was about my daughter growing up and becoming a human being. I still want to protect her and tell her what to do, and I can’t anymore. This script has a lot of elements of other things I’ve written. I don’t sit and say, “I’m going to write about adult children living with their parents again,” which is the same as in “Junebug.” Or about the loss of a child again. Even the “hot button” political aspects of this film – like PTSD or a woman’s right to choose – I never think I’m going to write a movie about that. I’m interested in people. That’s my intention.
David Strathairn: I love qualifying this film as one about the way people live. I think it’s essential in a culture where we’re getting fractured and separated from our neighbors and communities. It’s a time gone by, when people would get together and share what’s going on. The post office, the grocery store, all these communalities that have been compromised by modern technology. This film, for me, was taking the roof off the top of a house down the road and saying, “Oh yeah, these people are going through the sort of the same things.” People strive and try to do their best to move through life; there’s a simple element of compassion in this film.
Angus, the film does feel very timely, given those issues you mentioned, like abortion and PTSD. How do you manage that element and still make this feel timeless?
AM: These issues become very different when they come home to roost in one’s own family. When you have to say this thing that maybe I object to or have difficulty with is happening to someone that I love. That’s fascinating to me. I’m old enough to remember that happening during the AIDS crisis, where people had strong opinions, and then someone they knew got sick, and that changed their idea of extrapolating it away from the human heart.
This cast has an incredibly natural dynamic. Talk about putting them all together.
AM: As someone who was an actor, I don’t really like auditioning people. I work with a great casting director, Mark Bennett, who also cast “Junebug” and brought us Amy Adams. I had approached David about being in my earlier film, “Abundant Acreage Available,” and he couldn’t do it. He was nice enough to stay in touch with me. I needed an actor that had great gravitas and honor. Celia Weston has been in two of my other films, and I love her. She’s incredible in that, and she has this ability to have such emotional verisimilitude and then turn a line comedically on a dime.
Mark brought me Will Pullen and Jane Levy. And with Jane, after I cast her, they sent me clips from her TV series “Zoe’s Extraordinary Playlist.” I saw she was so talented because she sings and dances and does physical comedy. Dascha Polanco, I knew of her and thought she would be great. The other one that’s interesting is Ashley Shelton, who plays Bethany, and Anna Camp, who’s been in two of my films, and I love.
I’d love to break down arguably the most important scene of the film, which is an exchange between David and Jane Levy at the end of the film. David, you have such a special dynamic with Jane. Do you feel a fatherly instinct toward her, as happens in the film?
DS: That scene hits me hard, still does when I think about it. It’s a moment in my character’s trajectory where he has to come out of his shell. He’s not the most loquacious guy. There are mines in his family, and they’ve all somehow navigated those minefields. But he’s got to come clean and open up. The way Angus wrote and filmed this, it was gentle but incisive. I think of Jane with so much respect for her performance, I do have this kind of paternal – it’s weird, because I’m playing an old guy feeling for her. And I’m an actor watching this actress whose skills and depth of emotion are on full display.
AM: I just want to add that we shot this scene on day 4 out of 19. Jane tells David that they are “kindred spirits.” My wonderful DP Scott Miller was kneeling in front of them. The camera starts on Jane, and then moves over to David, and then comes back to Jane. When I saw it in the monitor, I thought, “If I don’t fuck up anything else, I’ve got it.” That scene is the confluence of everything.
David, you also have an incredible confrontation with Dascha’s character. You discover she’s keeping your son’s baby, conceived in an affair he’s been concealing from his wife, played by Jane.
DS: It’s quite something, the things my character says about his adult children. He probably didn’t feel like that for most of his life, and boom, here comes an awareness which he is now reckoning with. I think that makes him somewhat of a brave guy to be able to voice it. On a universal scale, it’s great to see a man speak his heart.