A Bit of Light (Moyer, 2022)

Do you watch enough movies that you’ve had the experience of being in the middle of a film feeling as though you have seen it before … but not being quite certain?

I hadn’t seen A Bit of Light before, but the familiarity of its plot — an alcoholic trying to reconnect with a former loved one in what he/she senses may be a last chance and rehabilitation — sent me to my Letterboxd diary several times just to make sure.

How much, if at all, the familiarity of the plot premise bothers you may vary depending on how anxious you are to see Anna Paquin (as the alcoholic Ella, who has given up custody of her child) and Ray Winstone (as Ella’s father, Alan) showcase their considerable thespian gifts.

I think Paquin is about as underrated as someone with an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Golden Glove (all for different roles) can be, so I was game to watch her attack the role — up to a point. The film’s based on a stage play, and contra the film’s press kit, adapting those takes something more than just casting the right talent. For example, stage dramas tend to rely a bit more heavily on dialogue, and while an actor’s delivery does matter, there are only so many ways you can play a bitter exchange with an ex’s new wife or an aggressive hostility that shields hurt more than expresses anger.

Ella’s relationship with Neil, a non-blood relative with whom she bonds, provides a foil through which to compare biological bonds with those created by circumstances throwing unlikely allies together. Ths too, though, feels formulaic, Neil and Ella give each other something to fight for, but the reasons why they are able to help each other come across as more generic than specific, comments about human nature rather than these particular humans.

There is nothing wrong with the execution of A Bit of Light, but neither is there much new or distinctive. For example, 28 Days, Leaving Las Vegas, and Days of Wine and Roses all feature female alchoholics. Custody battles form a genre unto themselves. I will concede that A Bit of Light is able to show the trauma associated with separation and not merely the battles the precede it or for reconcilation. That’s not enough to recommend it for me, but I understand that this movie may land a bit different depending on what the audience brings to it.

The film opens simultaneously in theaters and on-demand April 5, 2024.