This is another review from the HollyShorts Film Festival (13-23 Aug).
Sweetwater (Michael Keaton Douglas, 2026)
A rather touching and old-fashioned ghost story written by Sean Douglas and directed by (and starring) his father Michael Keaton (Douglas), Sweetwater is about a celebrity singer and presenter whose house is up for sale after her death.
Keaton plays the son, Robert, who is there to say goodbye to the Sweetwater estate but when a mysterious gift arrives he discovers some doors are not as firmly closed as you might think.
Kyra Sedgwick plays the image of the mysterious Betty, a creation who knows all the public information but none of the personal and private stuff that exists outside of Internet searches.
She looks like the young mother and star Robert remembers, albeit with a few technological glitches, but can’t connect with his memories or remember her ‘Bobby’ as anything but a young child.
Sweetwater raises the idea of what might happen were you given the opportunity to speak with the young version of your parent, as equals and adults? Would you want to, and would you get along?
It isn’t complicated, it is just that framework of grieving son and the image of the mother lost forever, in an approximate image generated by technology and back in the home they once shared.
Douglas father and son have created a story that will resonate with anyone who has lost a parent, or has simply moved on in life. There are moments where shared memories are questioned, especially about young Bobby’s inclusion as a boy in his mother’s TV show.
But what comes through the strongest is that connection and understanding that comes from an understanding common to both people.
Sweetwater is part of this month’s HollyShorts Film Festival.