David Strathairn, Jane Levy Are Kindred Spirits in Sweet, Heartbreaking A Little Prayer

The relationship between a married person and a stepparent is so often the stuff of adversarial cinematic stereotyping that we tend to look past such pairings of characters as opportunities for love, or support, or tenderness. We’ve been pummeled by so many Focker puns, so many post-Father of the Bride caricatures, that the thought of in-laws as anything but an obstacle standing in the way of love to be overcome or an annoyance to be dodged registers as an almost naively optimistic sentiment. But director Angus MacLachlan’s (Junebug) long-completed but finally released A Little Prayer looks past conventional depictions of familial ties to question what we owe to each other, not only via baked-in responsibility to our blood relations but to the people with whom we have forged more earnest bonds based on fondness and more heartfelt admiration. Graceful and honest in its assessment of the frayed bonds of marriage and extended family, A Little Prayer thrives on a duo of beautifully rendered performances from David Strathairn and Jane Levy, brought together as two people seemingly meant to be in each other’s proximity–not as romantic partners, but as confidants of a nature that is almost more intimate in its own way.

Strathairn, ever the dependable, consummate Hollywood professional, is a revelation here, playing Bill, a world weary Vietnam veteran father who has by any criteria earned some kind of retirement age peace of mind, but is instead forced to contend with the failings of the younger generation, which threaten to dissolve the best parts of the family life he does possess and cherish. Bill and his wife Venida (Celia Weston) both seem like they should have earned a respite from the constant anxieties of parenthood, but somehow in their 70s they both find themselves not only still working daily jobs, but also providing a soft landing spot for the self-inflicted crash landings of their two children, David (Will Pullen) and Patti (Anna Camp), the latter of whom arrives one day unannounced, daughter in tow, having separated from her drug-addicted husband yet again.

This likely makes A Little Prayer sound a bit more fraught and heavily dramatized than it actually is. MacLachlan’s feature–which premiered at Sundance way back in 2023 but then was shelved during the Writers Guild strike and eventually acquired by Music Box Films for release this fall–is in actuality a gentle, ambling meditation on a specific form of familial ethics, best summed up in the question of “Should you tell someone information that will hurt them, and yourself?” And its key relationship isn’t between Bill and one of his own progeny, but instead between Bill and his son’s wife, Tammy (Levy).

Tammy is, in a few words, a ray of sunshine–this is clear from the first morning we meet her, awakening next to her terse husband in the small guest house behind Bill and Venida’s home. It’s at first unclear why the four would all be living on the small parcel of property in what feels like a suburb of the American South, but we gradually come to realize that the seemingly lonely, meek Tammy originally moved in while her husband David was deployed in the military overseas–a role mirroring Bill’s own service in Vietnam. When David returned, it seems the couple simply stuck around, as David joined his father’s sheet metal company and Tammy lingered at home, the apparent picture of humble, self-doubting domesticity. This image belies the character’s inner strength and steadfastness, qualities that–like so many of Tammy’s virtues–Bill can most clearly see. But the slow pace of small town life is also a breeding ground for resentment and temptation, and when it becomes clear to Bill that his son is likely engaged in some kind of protracted affair with another employee of the company, he must decide how to engage both his heir and Tammy, the woman he arguably sees as more of a daughter than his actual child. Strathairn is left to navigate these threatening, swirling currents, tugged by responsibility, doubt and guilt. Confiding in his wife and asking “What are we supposed to do, play dumb?”, she replies in the affirmative: “Yes, play dumb. You’re good at that.”