Katherine Mallen Kupferer (left) and Chloe Coleman in 'Mouse.' Courtesy of Berlin International Film Festival Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment There's a gentle thread running through the work of filmmakers Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson, about characters filling an emptiness and stumbling onto a course-correcting sense of self-worth. In Saint Frances, an unplanned pregnancy and consequent abortion expose a young woman's feelings of failure for not having figured out where her life is headed. In Ghostlight, a middle-aged construction worker struggling to get past the death of his teenage son impulsively joins a local theater company doing Romeo and Juliet, finding strength in community. The co-directors' new and arguably best film, Mouse, centers on an insecure teenager stranded with no place to shelter when the incandescent best friend she always hid behind is suddenly removed from the picture. It's a funny-sad drama about loss, solitude, unexpected connections, coming of age and - in a disarmingly casual way that stitches it into the fabric of growth and change with minimal fuss - coming out. Related Stories News Iranian Protests Hit Berlin: Filmmakers and Activists Plead With Fellow Festgoers to Hear Silenced Voices Movies Spain's ISII Group Debuts at Berlin's EFM With a Focus on Ambitious Cinema That Can Travel and Perform Commercially Mouse The Bottom Line Unassuming and lovely. Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Panorama)Cast: Sophie Okonedo, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, Chloe Coleman, Tara Mallen, Audrey Grace Marshall, Addisyn Cain, Beck Nolan, Christopher R. Ellis, Iman Vellani, David Hyde PierceDirectors: Kelly O'Sullivan, Alex ThompsonScreenwriter: Kelly O'Sullivan 2 hours Doing a complete 180 from her volatile theater geek in Ghostlight, Katherine Mallen Kupferer plays 17-year-old Minnie, whose passive demeanor early on is suggested by Masha's line from The Seagull: "I drag my life around behind me, like a dress with an endless train." She's not exactly a Chekhovian figure, but Minnie does wear a light cloak of melancholy as she stays in the shadow of her longtime pal Callie (Chloe Coleman), who is as charismatic and popular as Minnie is withdrawn. It's summer 2002 and Callie and Minnie are wrapping up their senior year at North Little Rock High School in Arkansas. Callie has snagged the lead in every school musical and co-hosts the in-house video-casts with her floppy-haired, blond dreamboat boyfriend Brad (Beck Nolan). Amusingly, Callie has her whole life mapped out in her head down to the last detail - a move to New York City, full scholarship to Juilliard, a forgettable affair with a director, a slow-starting stage career that explodes when she goes on for a lead with a torn meniscus, multiple Tonys and a lifetime achievement award. She dreams big. Minnie predicts she will lead a small life, though her mother, Barbara (Tara Mallen), thinks she will find herself in college. Others have less faith in her, like fellow seniors Cara (Audrey Grace Marshall) and Brandi (Addisyn Cain). In a sleepover truth game, Cara offhandedly admits she usually forgets Minnie is there. O'Sullivan, who wrote the script and co-directed with Thompson, sticks to understatement, only very subtly suggesting that while Minnie and Callie's close friendship is both genuine and fully reciprocal, a whisper of jealousy lingers in Minnie's subconscious. Part of that is the unflattering comparison of Minnie's home life - subsisting on fast food and TV dinners with a sometimes crassly plainspoken veterinarian technician single mom who fills their rundown apartment with hard-luck pets presumably passed up for adoption - with Callie's spotless middle-class home and ample parental attention. Callie's dad Mark (Christopher R. Ellis), at least from Minnie's perspective, is cool and easygoing, but the main attraction is her mother, Helen (Sophie Okonedo), who has an aura of cultured sophistication, treating Minnie almost as one of the family while whipping up delicious meals. Since it happens so early in the film and shapes everything that follows, it's hard to avoid the massive spoiler that tragedy abruptly takes Callie out of the lives of both Minnie and Helen, fueling disbelief, anger, crushing sadness and flailing attempts to move forward. Or stay rooted to the spot. Mallen Kupferer is terrific as Minnie tries to figure out her position in the school landscape without Callie for cover, barely containing her fury when Cara and Brandi scramble for the podium in what she later calls "the Olympics of grief." This also allows for a performance as rich in emotional insightfulness and sensitivity as it is in deadpan humor from the invaluable David Hyde Pierce as their drama teacher, Mr. Murdaugh, who serves as peace-keeping mediator in their disagr