Synopsis
The Cathedral is a quietly powerful coming-of-age drama from director Ricky D’Ambrose. The film traces the life of Jesse Damrosh from childhood to young adulthood, depicting the emotional and economic undercurrents that shape his family across the 1980s and 1990s. Through a precise, documentary-like style, it explores themes of memory, disconnection, and the passage of time within the confines of a middle-class Long Island household. Minimalist yet deeply affecting, the film offers an intimate portrait of one boy’s upbringing amid the shifting landscape of the American dream.
Reviews
“D’Ambrose portrays his loved ones not as isolated figures in a world of their own but as historical figures on the world stage—and he makes it clear that they bestowed upon him, in their own blundering but determined way, his own place on it, as actor and director, from the earliest age.”
The New Yorker
“The Cathedral marries form to content in a striking way. … D’Ambrose doesn’t clutter up the narrative with a flip-book style of editing. … The distant style and close point-of-view allows us to lean in, to empathize on a different level.”
RogerEbert.com
“D’Ambrose pulls off a discrete but inexorable dissection of love, obligation, and unresolved shame, ultimately delivering a quiet but devastating portrait of a family stretched thin over decades.”
The Hollywood Reporter