A Prayer for the Dying Premieres in Berlin
Dara Van Dusen is a Superb Filmmaker
By: Susan Hall - Feb 19, 2026
A film adaptation of Stewart O’Nan’s novel A Prayer for the Dying premiered at the Berlin Film Festival.
The director, Dara Van Dusen—Hollywood royalty as the granddaughter of Baby Doll’s Carroll Baker—is a creature of the world, countering America’s current image of backsliding into the past. Van Dusen studied film in Poland and now lives in Norway. The film was financed primarily with Norwegian money and shot in Slovakia. The director and cinematographer made it look like rural Wisconsin, where the story of a diphtheria epidemic is set.
Diphtheria ravaged America after the Civil War, particularly affecting children, who would cough themselves to death. The brilliant soundtrack of the film is made up of an infinite variety of cough sounds—crackling, brushing, gurgling. It places viewers in the “you” position of the novel, taking us into the town’s mental state.
Van Dusen is a director with style. The long, dark passageways of homes and town buildings lead to less and less outside light as the epidemic surges. Film cuts are both surprising and suitable.
Johnny Flynn and John C. Reilly star as the town’s mayor/undertaker, who is against informing the townspeople of the threat, and the beleaguered physician who is trying to cut losses.
The harsh life of 19th-century rural America is captured in spades. The blues and greys of the epidemic are eventually engulfed by the reds of a rampaging wildfire.
Van Dusen has a demonstrable gift with actors and also with film graphics. The mix of perspectives—from placing the viewer in the scenes to inviting us to observe—does not work out smoothly, yet the mix suggests that Van Dusen is a talent of great subtlety and scope.