No matter your family situation, the holidays can often be a time of melancholy as much as they are a time of joy. It's part of their unique magic; that "sentimental feeling" often comes with reflections of those no longer with us, of warm (or perhaps not-so-warm) childhood memories now faded into grown-up responsibilities. Perhaps they've grown into new feelings of warmth as you watch your own children experience that magic you once felt, or perhaps that warmth has turned cold due to family conflicts or personal struggles. Whatever the circumstances, that mixture of sadness and excitement, heightened stress and breathless anticipation, is an emotional concoction unlike any other during the holiday season.

Adam Elliot's 2009 film, Mary and Max, felt like something of a minor miracle at the time, a work of stop-motion animation that dealt, both seriously and humorously, with decidedly grown up themes of depression, loneliness, and mental illness. Memoir of a Snail is Elliot's first feature since his acclaimed feature debut, and while it doesn't quite reach the heights of Mary and Max, it's still a lovely film in its own right.

In theatre, the term "ghostlight" refers to a light left on in an empty theatre to provide illumination when the building isn't occupied. That ghostlight was, in essence, a safety mechanism meant to prevent people from walking off the edge of the stage and into the orchestra pit below. In Ghostlight, we are introduced to an emotionally distant construction worker named Dan (Keith Kupferer), a man of few words but big feelings - feelings that he usually keeps bottled up inside only to burst forth as explosive anger when pushed to the limit.