Light from Light may not make you believe in ghosts but it will make you want to live in the hills of East Tennessee. Beautiful shots of morning mist rising over a sea of green pepper the film, and there is lushness everywhere. Everywhere, except in the lives of the characters in this quiet, powerful film.

Sheila (Marin Ireland) is a paranormal investigator. Actually, it’s her side gig. It couldn’t really even be called her passion because she’s not totally sure that ghosts exist. The only thing close to a paranormal experience she actually had was a dream when she was a child, and the prophetic nature of that dream is a stretch at best. She lives with her son, Owen (Josh Wiggins). It’s a loving relationship, but few words are generally spoken between them, and it seems Owen looks after Sheila than vice versa.

Sheila gets a call from an Episcopal priest who mentions a parishioner’s wife died and believes that she is haunting his house. Bored more than intrigued, she decides to take the case without pay because “money messes things up.” Lacking a team, she enlists her son and his friend Lucy (Atheena Frizzell) to help her.

The house belongs to Richard (Jim Gaffigan), who works at a local fish hatchery (another opportune moment to show the beauty of the state). A quiet, taciturn man, he loved his wife, yet it feels like their fundamental differences in temperament and interests may have caused some conflict.

Sheila investigates the house, and what happens next is important, but director-writer Paul Harrill is less interested in what haunts Richard’s house as much as what troubles Sheila and Richard.

Ireland, a treasure of the New York theater scene, gives Sheila what can best be called a quiet wariness. We learn her track record of men isn’t great. She doesn’t have many friends, if any at all, and she dotes on Owen to excess and perhaps even smothers him a bit. Owen’s response is to capitulate. He’s smart enough to go to college, but Sheila lets on as often as she can that she doesn’t think he will. When Owen tells Lucy that he can’t have a relationship with her as she’s going to go off to college, Sheila’s response upon hearing about the conversation is a thumbs up and “Good man.” Sheila is inadvertently poisoning her son with her cynicism, but she’s certainly not a villain. No one here is, but she is erasing boundaries between her and Owen that is already affecting him.

Richard is a harder nut to crack. He is either taciturn in his sadness or, more likely, has never been happy. Gaffigan uses his physicality wonderfully. He appears to have sunk into his body only to come up for air when he has to. 

When Richard and Sheila meet, there is a connection. Not a romantic one, but these are two adults who have spent a good time avoiding real company, yet they share a desire to move past their sadness and, little by little, they edge each other to the light.

Harrill moves things along at a deliberate pace, slowly unwrapping his characters’ layers and their defenses. The mood is quiet and contemplative with a river of tension running through it that strings the scenes together. Though there are spooky moments here and there, this is no horror film. It’s a sensitive character study about a group of people edging their way out of loss. And in that, it succeeds quite admirably.