ILLUSION film screening
This touching film-within-a-film fantasy stars Kirk Douglas, in his final role, as a Hollywood director on his deathbed haunted by the damage his workaholic career had on his son.
“Powerful, beautiful, and engrossing,” Stephen Simon writes in Wisdom Magazine.
“Unlike anything else to come along in years,” Mike LaSalle writes in the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Prime family fare,” writes Ronnie Scheib in Variety.
The beautiful story about what matters most in life features Douglas as Donald Baines, a once-powerful filmmaker who made many of Hollywood’s Golden Age love stories and lived a lavish life of fame and fortune — but was without love in his own life.
The ailing director is especially haunted by the memory of his son, Christopher (Michael Goorjian), who he conceived out of wedlock and abandoned as a child.
Lying in bed alone, Donald is awakened late one night by a ghostly image of Stan (Ron Marasco), a favorite editor who has been dead more than 35 years. Stan says he is there to help Donald and will review footage of Donald’s and Christopher’s lives.
On the screen, Donald watches mournfully as he sees clips of his son’s life, witnessing the effect his absence had on his son and on his own inability to find love.
Two constants in the clips are Christopher’s unfulfilled quest for his lifelong love, Isabelle (Karen Tucker), and the imagined voice he hears of Donald telling him he is unworthy and unwanted.
It is only later, in viewing the clips and talking with Stan, that Donald discovers a surprising truth about his son and himself.
The 2004 film, which earned four critic and festival awards, runs 1 hour 46 minutes and is rated PG–13. Its trailer can be found on YouTube at tinyurl.com/Illusion-MoviesWSpirit.
The screening will be followed by a discussion. Refreshments will be served.
Attendees over age 12 are asked to contribute $10 a person.
Movies With Spirit screenings comply with all federal, state and local health and safety protocols, including those of the screening venues.
The monthly Movies With Spirit series, organized by Gerry Harrington of Kingston, seeks to stimulate joy and wonder, inspire love and compassion, and help people understand their connection with others and with life itself. It supports all cultures, faiths and beliefs while transcending them.
The films are shown mostly in diverse places of worship and reverence across Ulster and Dutchess counties at 7 p.m., usually on the third Saturday of every month. Movies With Spirit has no religious affiliation.