A Little Prayer Movie Review: Fathers, Failings, and Fragile Faith

Angus MacLachlan‘s A Little Prayer arrived at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival nearly two decades after his last Sundance premiere, Junebug. It carries the wisdom of a filmmaker who’s learned to trust quiet moments over manufactured calamity. Shot in his hometown of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, this deeply personal family drama transforms familiar domestic tensions into something genuinely affecting. After premiering at the festival in 2023, the film is finally set to reach theaters via Music Box Films. It stands as MacLachlan’s most emotionally mature work yet—subtle, surefooted, and rooted in Southern authenticity.

Bill (David Strathairn, Nomadland) represents a particular type of Southern patriarch—a Vietnam veteran who built his life on moral clarity and steady hands. He runs his small business, provides for his extended family, and gravitates toward his daughter-in-law Tammy (Jane Levy, Evil Dead) as the one person who shares his preference for contemplation over chaos. When his troubled son David (Will Pullen, Bad Times at the El Royale) begins straying from his marriage—possibly with coworker Narcedalia (Dascha Polanco, In the Heights), Bill faces a crisis that challenges everything he understands about fatherhood and family loyalty.

Strathairn delivers a masterclass in understated authority. Hollywood tends to take actors like him for granted—performers so consistently excellent they become invisible fixtures rather than celebrated stars. Bill could have been stock character territory, the rigid patriarch learning to bend, but Strathairn finds layers of doubt beneath the surface confidence. His weathered face becomes a map of accumulated disappointments and stubborn hope, while his conversations with Tammy spark with unspoken understanding.

Levy matches this subtlety with a performance that demands internal transformation, without theatrical flourishes. Tammy’s journey requires delicate navigation—she must remain sympathetic while making difficult choices that ripple through the entire family. Together, they share an invisible chemistry that makes their bond feel like it’s been built slowly over time instead of simply scripted to exist. They provide the film’s emotional center as two souls finding kinship across generational lines.

The supporting performances vary in effectiveness. Celia Weston (Celia Weston, You’re Cordially Invited) brings reliable warmth to Venida, Bill’s wife, though the character feels somewhat underwritten and an easy target for the exceptional Weston to hit. Polanco impresses in a complex role that could have become a homewrecking stereotype, instead finding dignity and agency in Narcedalia’s choices. Anna Camp (Pitch Perfect) struggles with Patti, Bill’s troubled daughter. The character feels disconnected from the central narrative and exists primarily to demonstrate Bill’s parenting failures.

Cinematographer Scott Miller captures the humid weight of a North Carolina summer using natural light to create intimate spaces that Diana Rice‘s production design ensures has the feel of an authentic home a family was raised in. Greg Danner‘s score remains appropriately unobtrusive, swelling only when the characters’ internal lives demand musical expression.

The film’s exploration of patriarchal authority feels particularly relevant in contemporary discussions about family dynamics and social change. Bill represents a generation caught between old certainties and new realities, forced to confront how his definition of protection might actually cause harm. MacLachlan doesn’t villainize traditional masculinity so much as examine its limitations with empathetic precision.

Where A Little Prayer occasionally stumbles is in its ambitious scope. The script attempts to address military PTSD, reproductive rights, domestic abuse, and generational trauma within a ninety-minute runtime. This prioritizes character over issue exploration. Individual storylines feel rushed, particularly David’s psychological deterioration. The film works best when focused on the Bill-Tammy relationship, losing momentum when it strays toward broader social commentary. The third act requires significant emotional heavy lifting from Strathairn as Bill confronts his son’s problems and his own parental shortcomings. The actor rises to the challenge, but the screenplay doesn’t provide a sufficiently solid foundation for the character’s final transformation.

MacLachlan’s mature storytelling instincts shine through his preference for kitchen conversations over staged confrontations, trusting his actors to carry emotional weight without overwritten dialogue. The film’s final sequence—a museum visit that serves as both a gift and a metaphor—provides precisely the right note of hope without a false resolution.

A Little Prayer won’t revolutionize the family drama genre, but it offers something increasingly rare: a patient character study that respects both its subjects and audience. This is a small movie with big questions about who we become when our children disappoint us, what it means to carry a legacy we didn’t know we were passing on, and the complicated love between people connected by something deeper than blood. Strathairn’s commanding performance alone makes this worth seeking out—a sincere, character-driven drama that doesn’t shout, doesn’t pose, and simply asks you to listen.