Critic's Notebook

Music Box Films

With its premiere at Sundance Film Festival in 2023, Angus MacLachlan’s “A Little Prayer” immediately landed distribution with Sony Pictures Classics. It made sense, considering the company’s previous success with “Junebug,” which Mr. MacLachlan also scripted. It’s now finally seeing the light of day two and a half years later courtesy of Music Box Films. The press releases are careful to avoid the term “shelved,” but the fact of the matter is Sony Classics did keep the title on its website and extranet for the longest time – which also makes sense if you saw it at Sundance in 2023.

Mr. MacLachlan, a North Carolina native, has a knack for shaping characters and stories set in the South. His are not caricatures or clichés that country musicians and some Southerners like to play up (see: “Hillbilly Elegy”). If you’ve spent time down South, you’ll recognize the folks in his playwriting: upper middle class, living comfortably and still facing issues worthy of a soap opera.

David Strathairn plays Bill, who checks a few Southern-archetype boxes: he’s a vet and a self-made factory owner. No, he doesn’t wear a truck hat or sit around and chug beers. He’s a typical albeit affluent Southerner; he lives in an upscale neighborhood and drives a nice car. Nevertheless, his adult children are mired deep in trifling drama worthy of tabloid talk shows.

His daughter, Patti (Anna Camp), repeatedly leaves her husband and moves back home. His son, David (Will Pullen), is a ne’er-do-well who only has a job thanks to nepotism. Bill gets along much better with David’s wife, Tammy (Jane Levy), who is a total sweetheart.

David and Tammy live with Bill and his wife, Venida (Celia Weston), so they get by well enough even if Tammy feels compelled to take up a job at Target. Still, jealous Patti accuses Tammy of sponging off Bill. Meanwhile, David is a drunk and a philanderer, and Bill has to have a serious talking-to with him about flirting with subordinates.

“Was I a bad father?” Bill asks. “You did what you had to,” Venida responds.

Suspecting David is having an affair with the secretary, Narcedalia (Dascha Polanco), Bill faces a dilemma: should he say something and risk interfering in David and Tammy’s marriage? Having developed paternal feelings toward Tammy, Bill feels obligated to protect her from his own son.

Mr. MacLachlan definitely has an ear for dialogue and a gift for shaping vivid characters. Under Phil Morrison’s direction and with a breakout performance from Amy Adams, “Junebug” was truly special. But filmmaking isn’t for every playwright. Even with two other features as director under his belt, Mr. MacLachlan still makes rookie mistakes like leaving actors out of the frame or letting actors block the frame. To say the least, the film is visually lacking.

Ms. Levy does a fantastic Southern accent. Mr. Strathairn is always reliable. Ms. Polanco is a standout. Other than those, the acting is uniformly wooden. The film at times gives off a community theater vibe.

“A Little Prayer” touches on the abortion issue from a red state perspective. When it premiered at Sundance on the heels of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, it was, at minimum, a fresh and distinctive addition to the political discourse. With the abortion ban now a done deal, this now feels like a relic inside a time capsule even though that’s no fault of Mr. MacLachlan’s.