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| A Little Prayer |
Playwright and filmmaker Angus MacLachlan's A Little Prayer follows Bill (David Strathairn), an elderly father who desperately wants to protect his daughter-in-law Tammy (Jane Levy) after he discovers his son David (Will Pullen) is having an affair. Meanwhile, daughter Patti (Anna Camp), who has walked out on her husband again, turns up with her little girl Hadley (Billie Roy). Bill does his best to keep his suspicions from his wife Venida (Cecilia Weston), but struggling to engage his son in conversation, reminders of his own mistakes resurface.
MacLachlan directorial credits include the 2014 comedy-drama Goodbye To All That, about a man who experiences a series of one night stands after his wife suddenly announces she wants a divorce, and 2017's Abundant Acreage Available, which follows two siblings confront a surprising revelation after their father's death. He has also written the plays Junebug and The Dead Eye Boy.
In conversation with Eye For Film, MacLachlan discussed A Little Prayer's difficult journey, its personal roots, how he appreciates characters that gradually reveal themselves, and the film's political undertones.
Paul Risker: I first remember seeing A Little Prayer when it played Sundance in 2023. It's surprising to still see the film on the festival circuit.
Angus MacLachlan: It has been a long journey. I actually started this film almost nine years ago. It has just been so hard. It took a while to get it together and then Covid happened, and then all this other stuff. As you know, independent films, all films, are having struggles, and so, it just takes such a long time.
We are at the Chicago Film Critics Film Festival, and we were just at EbertFest last week. I feel sure the release will happen sometime soon, and I'm so glad that you remembered it. I'm really looking forward to people actually getting to see it.
PR: In a strange way it's fitting that the film has been a long journey because the characters take these long, winding, and often indecisive paths. So, the real-life story of the making of the film echoes the lives of the characters.
AM: I don't think of myself as a political filmmaker, but there are elements of this film that one could take as being political — PTSD and veterans, a woman's right to choose, interracial relationships and addiction. They're not really what the film is about, but they're what these characters are dealing with.
I always feel there's a real difference between when something is argued on the floor of the Senate or Parliament and then when it actually hits a family. I'm always interested in how people deal with these things when they're dealing with someone that they love, and they can't cut them out — when it's very difficult, when it's not clear-cut, and it's painful.
There are a lot of filmmakers that I love, but I think of [Yasujirō] Ozu, Mike Leigh or Kenny Lonergan, who are interested in people and characters, and yet bring that emotion forward so you can see a larger picture.
PR; What was the genesis of the film?
AM: I was an actor for a long time, then I became a playwright, and then I became a screenwriter. I wrote the film, Junebug, which was actually based on a play of mine that Amy Adams was in, that Phil Morrison directed. This one was not based on a play. It was based on lots of different things that happened in my life and things that I read. There are a lot of themes that are in a lot of my plays and screenplays, but one of the things that I always bring up is that I've been working on it for eight and a half years — it was that hard.
One of my daughters was 15 at the time, and now she's almost 24. I realised, in retrospect, that I was writing unconsciously about her growing up and how, as a parent, you still want to protect them and tell them what to do, and you can't. I was working that out unconsciously while I was living it in real life. So, that's what my muse was telling me: "You gotta let go."
PR: The opening shot is interesting because seeing the quiet of the early morning stirred a feeling that the world is a beautiful and calm place until human chaos descends.
AM: Yes, and behind all that calmness in every one of those houses, there are stories of people attempting to do things, struggling to do things, and experiencing difficulties. Also, that neighbourhood was where I wrote it to take place and it's where we shot — a neighbourhood in Konnoak Hills, Winston-Salem. There's something about that neighbourhood that looks solid and secure with those big trees. I think it was probably built after the Second World War. There's a little bit of an idea of the "American Dream" or the dream of all people having a secure home and life. And yet again, there are these stories of humour and struggle, with issues that are always lying underneath, and that's fascinating to me.
PR: Bill and Venida are interesting characters because, opposite the tumultuous relationships of their children, we put them on this pedestal, as examples of unblemished integrity and order. And yet, as the story unfolds, we see through the façade. However, you never judge the characters. Instead, you let details creep out that shift our perspective.
AM: I was an actor for a number of years, and I was always frustrated if you tried to play a character that was just one-dimensional or maybe two-dimensional. So, I always want three-dimensional characters. I remember a quote from Meryl Streep when she first came out. She loved seeing plays where you thought you knew who the character was when they came out on stage, and then during the course of the story, you either see more of that character or something very different. It's exactly what you're saying, because that's the way we learn about people. They don't come out and tell you that they've done this or done that. And eventually, you get a more well-rounded picture of these human beings.
Film, for me, is about compassion and empathy. You can think, 'someone else went through something, I went through,' or 'someone really is going through that,' if it's something so far removed for you, and you can compassionately imagine what that might be like. That, to me, is what's wonderful about stories and film.
PR: A Little Prayer doesn't attempt to over-explain. Instead, the audience is asked to watch and listen closely and pick up on the subtler moments where important details creep out, or where characters toy with creating lies that they mutually agree upon.
AM: I watch some films over and over again and see something new or understand something that I didn't before. And I love that. Some films I don't want to see again — they don't have that kind of texture to them. But I intentionally try to do that with my films, and particularly this one, because sometimes in Q&A's, after the film, the audience go, "I don't understand why this happened." I say, "Well, this happened at the beginning," and they go, "Oh, that's right. I didn't put that together — how that line was there, and it resonates at the end."
PR: A Little Prayer is like a seed from which a bigger story will grow. This taps into Billy Wilder's sentiment that the audience are the ones who must imagine what happens after the film has ended.
AM: Absolutely. There are lots of things that you discover at the very end of the film, where you ask what's going to happen to that character? Yeah, I love that and, at the same time, the challenge is to also make an ending that is emotionally satisfying, even if it's not all tied up. And I love that when it's both, where somehow emotionally you feel satisfied, but you still have questions as to what's going to happen.
A Little Prayer is the closing night film of the 2025 Chicago Critics Film Festival, which runs until May 8th.
